Heriz-Smith

We’ve had two or three nights of light ground frost - most of the tomatoes are in. The beets are still nice and sweet. I might get one more batch of the Haricot Vert beans in - that would be nice. Laurie and Audrey picked all the Basil plants, they are now sitting in buckets in the porch. The potatoes are looking pretty good too - the Katahdin in particular has died back and are a nice size. Perhaps we’ll do those tomorrow if the weather is nice. I brought all the onions in over the past week and they are up in the barn curing.

We’re off to the Common Ground fair is a few minutes. It’s foggy now but that’s supposed to lift. Audrey’s going to be mad mad mad if it doesn’t - the majority of her class took the day off yesterday and went on a sunny hot day.

Just planted the last three rows of potatoes in the new bed. German Butterball in the 8th bed, Yellow Finn in the 9th, Salem in the first half of the 10th and our own German Butterballs from last year in the last half.

This morning i put the soil from the path on another row of potatoes. Now, is that exciting, or what?

I also dug up some chives for Laurie to put in the flower garden.

Yesterday, I covered one row of potatoes, just as they were showing through the soil, with about 2 inches or so shoveled up from the path. I then covered the row with about 8-10 inches of straw. This morning I covered another row with soil, but am out of straw,need to get more.

I also planted three parsley at the end of three rows - garlic, leek, and the empty bed where I plan to sow carrots.

Starting this morning I dug two more beds. In one I planted all the peppers from both Perennial Favorites and Roots-n-Shoots. I’ll have to check the varieties from Roots-n-Shoots. From Perennial Favorites we got Cherry Bomb, Hungarian Hot Wax, Garden Salsa, Early Jalapeno, Long Red Narrow Cayenne, and Matchbox.

On the inside border of six of the beds I planted a Parsley and two Basil.

Then I planted the first row of potatoes in the main garden. I wondered if it wouldn’t be better not to put them right next to a row of tomatoes, but I thought it should be OK - and this will be one way to find out. I put in a row of Sangre - they’ll be our early potatoes. I may put some in elsewhere as well, we’ll see.

Next, I planted the six Early White Vienna Kohlrabi at the end of the row of Brussels Sprouts.

I went down to Agway and picked up some No. 9 galvanized wire to make supports for the row cover. I also wanted some more garden string. I was looking at the different kinds they had there - and noticed a great roll of sisal twine packaged for a bailer. I don’t think we’ll need any more string for a while. The only thing I wonder is if it has preservative of some kind on it. It has that binder twine smell, and I’m not sure if that’s just the smell of the sisal, or if it’s something else. I’ll have to look that up…

I also put in the raspberry canes that our friend Kathryn Oliver gave us. We had the perfect number - they filled up the bed we’d set aside for them perfectly.

144 Bleu de Solaize leeks in the fourth bed from the top in the second garden, where I had potatoes last year. These are the leeks I plan to over-winter. I still need to put in the Lincoln leeks. So much to do.

Three more varieties of potato in the new garden - Katahdin, Bintje, and Keuke Gold

Forgot to mention yesterday I put in four rows of potatoes: Austrian Crescent (bought from Fedco), and three from our own seed potatoes; Ozette, Green Mountain and Purple Peruvian. Only six more rows to do in the new plot Jim tilled for us.