So an update on the V Garden. The first crop of broccoli and spinach have been harvested and reseeded, The brussels sprouts and cauliflower plants are huge, but not cropping yet. Remember how I said I had purchased 16 heirloom tomato plants from
www.laurelsheirloomtomatoes.com? Well in the 4 weeks subsequent to planting them. MANY new tomato self sown seedlings from last year's heirlooms have shown up. So I am now up to 40 tomato vines (cant wait to see some interesting crosses). EEK! Clearly, I will be adding tomatoes to the people I deliver food to. I have 24 juvenile tomatoes setting on one vine. They are growing so fast I have to prune and stake 2x a day (the major trick to tomatoes being to vigilantly prune off the suckers which shoot out at a 45* angle between the main stem and the sun leaf of the branch). The sweet peppers are starting to develop fruit. The white eggplants and Japanese mini eggplants are flowering, but no fruit yet. The 6 kinds of potatoes, now 3' over the top of the grow bags in the last month and rainbow carrots (my first year) are growing gangbusters. I bought these grow bags for them with velcro-ed garage doors on them that you can open and check the state of the root veggies without having to uproot them. Walla-walla onions and elephant garlic are getting ready to bloom. The Dill's Giant Pumpkins
https://www.westcoastseed...ucts/dills-atlantic-giant have taken off an are sending vines out off the fresh every year temporary raised bed. I do the bed 4 hay bales long on all 4 sides and fill with chicken poop and leaf compost). I move it every year as you have to be strict about crop rotation with pumpkins or you get Phytophthora, which is essentially plant Ebola and the ripe pumpkins liquify from the inside out. I have them on top of the septic field, which throws off radiant heat. Plenty of peaches/pears/apples/cherries on the trees, if the squirrels dont beat me to them. I've given up on corn entirely. Anyone in the NY/CT area? I'll drop some eggs and veggies off! And yes, true to my family in Ireland, I am a farmer. My mother just figured this out. I said "The whole horse thing for decades wasn't your first clue?" When I fill out a customs/immigration form and they ask for your employment I truthfully answer Farmer.
