Garden Log from southern Herkimer county, June 3, 2008
Read other people's comments here.
Index, arranged by date, and all the pix are here.



Quite a break that was, a whole week right at planting time too.
Got home Monday but was too busy yesterday to issue a report at the usual time.
Everything grew, My pepper plants survived the dry and cold neglect, I seem to have lost
most of my basil plants, and the cantalopes are looking poorly. My barley patch is now green:


Looks like grass does it not? I mowed lawn around the edge.

I have occasion for great joy. The one year seedling of a Mountain Ash tree I collected from my
raised garden bed a couple months ago decided to finally break dormancy while I was away:


A pretty little tree is it not? With nice display of rootage.

Most of yesterday was occupied with the planting of beans and corn.
Still could not get my tiller running, after yanking on the starting rope for half an hour, needs outside service.
So I used a hoe to get that bed ready. I planted six hills of pole beans around two tripods at either end of the bed.
I lay down tomato cages for the bush beans to climb on, then planted two rows, one on each side.
Three cages of pinto beans and two of bumble bee beans. The bumble bee are a large white bean
like Great Northern, but with a big black spot where the stitch goes. I fertilized the beans with handfuls of 5-10-5
and inoculated them with grains of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. There was enough space left for twelve hills
of sweet corn. Corn won't fix it's own nitrogen so each hill got a forkful of my old cow manure.
I was about spent when all that got done, still want to plant more winter squash, and other things
I should devote some time to weeding and caring for things that are already growing.
Seems about half my asparagus crowns have sprouted up. I'll have to get down and personal
to remove all the tiny weeds taking advantage of my asparagus.
So much to get done, expect more tomorrrow.