|
Despite the damaging hail and summer storms, the sunflower crop at Roseville Community Garden is doing well, keeping the pollinators happy. Because sunflowers “do it” with a little help from their friends! Here are a few photos taken before an afternoon thunderstorm on July 23, 2012.
In light of the damage done to Plot 63 at Roseville Community Garden by the July 18th hail-storm, I replanted about half the area of the garden on the afternoon of Sunday, July 22. A chance to “reboot” the plot, take advantage of some of the things I learned already this year, and salvage the remainder of the growing season. I was up for the challenge, and with 3-hours prep & planting, Garden 2.0 emerged. With no live plants left at any local or chain garden shops, I was relegated to planting from seeds (and some, ugh, are …Martha Stewart Living seeds, although most were Ferry-Morse). And I wanted to be sure that what I planted had time to mature in the last half of the season. Given the success I had with the Cherry Belle Radishes, I planted about 10-feet (2 – 5-ft rows) of them, as well as 10-feet of Sparkler Radishes. Also about 15-feet of Detroit Dark Red Morse’s Strain Beets, 6-feet of Ruby Red Swiss Chard (a new favorite recipe of mine to follow in another post this week), and one new hill of each of Cucumbers, Black Beauty Summer Squash, and Early Prolific Straightneck Squash. As I’m writing this on the evening of July 23, we’re experiencing our second wave of massive thunderstorms of the day. Hopefully, the heavy rains won’t wash out the newly planted seeds (a case of deja-vu to what happened earlier this year?) and get them off to a happy, healthy start. Time will tell. So below is the new baseline “Garden 2.0” picture taken Sunday, July 22, 2012.  The Garden 2.0 Baseline photo, taken Sunday, July 22, 2012. And below the jump is a pictorial look back at the weekly progress since May 19, 2012 until what we’ll now call “half-time” on the 2012 garden season. Continue reading Garden Update: Garden 2.0, Post-Storm Reboot Weather means more when you have a garden. There’s nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans. ~Marcelene CoxListening to the rain. Much needed and welcome rain, thinking it was soaking in around the tomatoes, basil, carrots, peppers, and squash in the garden at Plot 63 at Roseville Community Garden. I did a lot of that on Wednesday afternoon, and prayed it would help bring the latest nasty heat wave to and end. It did, but at a heavy price. At 1 pm, it was 102-degrees at the Alpine School in Sparta, and 98-degrees at the Andover-Aeroflex Airport – both less than five miles from my home and Plot 63 at Roseville Community Garden. By 4:30 pm, the temperature would be 74 degrees. At 3:00 pm, all hell had broken loose with the weather in North Jersey – it was a lightning storm unlike any I had witnessed in the 15 years that I lived here, with so much lightning that the thunder literally NEVER ended for almost an hour. At times, there were 5 or 6 lightning strikes a minute, many in plain sight from my dining room window. You know, the kind where you see and hear (and feel!) the thunder and lightning at the exact same instant, and the crash reverberates in your chest. Intense rains fell at a rate of 2-inches per hour at times (the local rain gauge at Lake Mohawk indicated almost 3-inches total in the two hour period). And according to reports, quarter-size hail and 55-mile-per-hour winds hit Sussex County. It hit Plot 63, and all the other plots at Roseville Community Garden for that matter. When it was all over, all of us who had toiled so hard in our 15-foot x 15-foot patches of heaven had learned a lesson of what it’s like for the farmers who grow the food we so often take for granted, and whose lives and families depend on the meager existence that they work from the soil. It ain’t easy. And the weather means more, when you have a garden. When I pulled up to the barn this morning to check on the garden, I just wanted to cry. The pictures below speak for themselves.  The standard view of Plot 63 that you’ve become accustomed to seeing in my weekly updates, morning of July 20, 2012. This time, things aren’t looking quite so good. Continue reading Garden Update: Weather means more when you have a garden Gardening is about enjoying the smell of things growing in the soil, getting dirty without feeling guilty, and generally taking the time to soak up a little peace and serenity. ~Lindley Karstens Plot 63, Roseville Community Garden on July 14, 2012. Day 56 since planting. [Note: I started this post on Monday, July 16 but got sidetracked with a client and some town meetings, so I did not finish processing the images and publish it. On Wednesday the 18th, more rushed client work, computer issues and the 102-degree heat with massive afternoon storms kept me offline and unable to publish. What happened Wednesday night made me too sad to finish the pics and publish – see my next post, “Weather means more when you have a garden” – but I’m doing so now on Friday, July 20 to keep continuity in my blog record of the garden project.] Whew! The crazy hot weather and lack of any real rain has kept me on a very regular watering/weeding/sweating schedule the past week, but I’ve always returned with something for my efforts. With the above normal summer heat on, the garden is growing like gangbusters – as is the bounty of the summer harvest! June brought an abundance of Crimson Giant and Cherry Belle Radishes, and Parris Island Romaine Lettuce. July’s garden has continued with the Romaine Lettuce and now yielded some hot jalapeno peppers, Black Beauty Summer Squash, Cucumbers, and Ruby Red Swiss Chard. I am waiting VERY impatiently for the tomatoes to start ripening, as the bushes are thick with rapidly growing green fruits! I’ve also grabbed a couple of green bell peppers, and the plants started from seeds after the first crop was washed out are looking really good – all with many flowers and lush green leaves – I’ve had to transplant a couple of them since they were growing too close to the now massive tomato bushes and being overwhelmed. Continue reading Garden Update: Getting dirty without feeling guilty As I have posted previously, I enjoy an almost virtual “National Geographic Outdoor Explorer” atmosphere in my back yard.Deer, turkey, bear on occasion, and an incredible variety of birds inhabit my neighborhood. When the weather cooperates – from early spring to late fall – I enjoy taking my laptop, cell phone, and a cup of coffee or tall glass of ice tea (sweet, thank you) out onto the back deck to work beneath the umbrella of my patio table. Sometimes it is tough to try and work past these distractions. Like yesterday, when the air was filled with the soft buzzzzzzzzzzzzz of ruby-throated hummingbirds chasing about the flowering Lantana plants on my deck and visiting my hummingbird feeder. Hmmm. Maybe I can use my simple little digital camera in video mode and catch something interesting. So after an hour and a half of setting the camera up, videoing an empty feeder, capturing a bird, editing what I captured and saving the file for the web, I ended up with about 14 seconds of pretty cool video. I think it was worth it! See for yourself. An excellent climate change explainer (awesome!), and discussion of climate change on a Sunday morning talk show (shocking!)??Everybody’s been talking about the weather. With fires raging in Colorado, record breaking heat all across the country, a “post-derecho” Washington, DC sizzling in 100-plus degree temps without electricity or air conditioning, the impact due to “climate change” and how we will need to adapt to it has been the topic of much discussion on the interwebs. Wondering about how and why climate change will impact us for generations to come? Want to watch 17 minutes of awesome? Take a look at an excellent climate change explainer – a talk given by David Roberts of Grist at a TEDx event back in April called “Hello Climate Change: Rethinking the Unthinkable” at The Evergreen State College. Roberts blogs about the talk at Grist: “Climate change is simple: We do something or we’re screwed [my TEDx video],” and you can watch it below: Now for something shocking! If like me, you know what #uppers means on Twitter, and are a fan of MSNBC’s Up with Chris Hayes show that runs live from 8-10 am on weekend mornings, this won’t surprise you. Hayes spent the first hour of his show on Sunday on climate change! He’s done a couple of segments and mentions earlier this year (including one with Roberts as a guest in January), but this discussion was perhaps the most in-depth look at the politics of climate change on the TV machine ever. Today is a busy day, with not a whole lot new happening at Plot 63 of the Roseville Community Garden, so I’ll just post up the latest images, taken last night before I weeded & watered. It’s now been 50 days since I started the garden, and most of the plants are looking good…and tasting even better! Be sure to follow the link below (at the break) for more pictures of individual plants.  Plot 63 at Roseville Community Garden, taken Sunday, July 8, 2012 – 50 days since planting. Summer has set in with its usual severity. ~Samuel Taylor ColeridgeJuly? July? Where did June go? With the weather we’ve had the last few weeks, you could almost convince me it’s August already! Daily high and low temperatures are averaging 5-15 degrees above normal, and have caused an explosion of growth in the garden. Fortunately, hours of sweating in the sun have kept the weeds somewhat under control. And things are looking good in Roseville Community Garden Plot 63!  The tomatoes are growing incredibly well, as can be seen in this July 2, 2012 photo from my Roseville Community Garden plot. I’ve harvested the last of the Cherry Belle and Crimson Giant radishes and distributed them by the dozens to appreciative friends and neighbors. And I have had a number of wonderful Romaine Lettuce and radish salads this past week, harvesting the lettuce by the grocery bag yesterday! The rest of the garden is progressing nicely, as you can see from these pictures. The tomatoes are loving the heat and warm nights – flowering and setting fruit like crazy! I am soooo ready for the first ones to ripen…because nothing beats the taste of a garden grown & ripened Jersey tomato! Nothing. The most impressive growth has come from the Early Acorn Squash plants, which are approaching three feet high and setting dozens of fruit. The Waltham Butternut Squash has grown substantially as well, and is setting out vines all over, but has yet to establish many fruit. If I’m not careful, it will take over the tomato patch! The Black Beauty Summer Squash started out a little disappointing, but the smallish plant (compared to the now massive acorn squash) has set a whole bunch of fruit that seem to have grown 6-8″ almost overnight. My cucumbers, after a slow start, are now starting to establish vines that I’m hoping to train into the vacated radish patch. And a few flowers have now set small fruit. The Sweet Red, Kung Pao Hybrid and Pepperochini Hot Peppers are doing well also – I’ll try and get some pictures of them this week, and I have a couple of jalepeno peppers ready to pick. The Sweet Basil, Fennel and Danvers 126 & Kaleidoscope Carrots also are looking healthy and making good progress as well. |
