Greetings from the Garden! This week’s CSA box has lettuce, summer cabbage, carrots, kale, green beans, radishes, potatoes, bok choy, Walla Walla Sweet onions, and parsley Field Notes. Mulching the garden continues. Ken is cultivating, wheel hoeing and mulching. He also planted six flats of fall crops one evening last week. He transplants in the evening so the plants experience less shock and recover to grow more quickly. Ken is tying up tomatoes weekly as …
Each season Ken makes a decision whether to mulch or not. If he decides not to mulch he plants a green manure crop. When it is hot or dry and the green manure won’t sprout, it’s a good time to mulch. Both mulch and green manures cover bare areas. They retain moisture in times of drought. They moderate the soil temperature to promote microbial life in the soil. The weed germination and pressure on …
Ken has always encouraged broody hens to hatch chicks. A few years back when the price of day old chicks went to $4 each, Ken got serious about hatching out chickens to replace older laying hens. A chick grows into either a pullet (female) or cockerel (male), and then as adult they are hens or roosters. Pullets grow for about six months before they lay eggs. Their first eggs are small and people call them …
