A beautiful day to be in the gardens — a slight breeze from the northeast and a perfect day to spray my preventative copper fungicide on just about everything I grow except basil and okra. Okra is very hearty and doesn’t need copper fungicide, and basil doesn’t get it for two reasons: the leaves burn easily, and we eat the leaves, as in pesto.
Before spraying, I quickly watered the fall bed and the calendula pockets. I wish my gardens were in my backyard, as I would water them more during direct sowing; I’m afraid they dry out too much in this heat. Some of my seeds are already up, like the mustard and radishes. I’m wondering if I might need a backup for the kale and collards, and I don’t think the stores are carrying fall plants. I plan to check while we are at the Do It Center later to buy my hose parts. I decided to direct sow the seeds this year, but I might have to go back to starting indoors — at least for the kale and collards.
It didn’t take me long to spray the copper fungicide; I even did the Learning Plot. While driving back, I saw Dottie and James pull into their plot and stopped to show Dottie the monarch butterfly photos and video. When I first started gardening five years ago, she told me her garden was meant to attract butterflies. Besides flowers, she also grew dill, and that day she let me cut some for the pickles we were making because we didn’t have any. The dill was to attract swallowtails, and if you remember, a few weeks back I posted the dill with the swallowtail caterpillar.
We talked gardening, and they mentioned that their okra didn’t do well. I piped up, “Do you need some okra?” As every day I am picking okra, I try to give it away — I just don’t have much need for it now that I’ve done the canning, drying, and the okra‑and‑tomatoes recipe. Well, she said I could have some figs. This worked out perfectly. I plan to IQF the figs until I can make jam later or give them to Chris, who loves figs. It seems we each had items we were getting in abundance and were glad to swap them out. We both went away happy. It is nice sharing my abundance with others, as I would have been happy not getting anything too.
I did two chores today: one at the Learning Plot and the other in the Pickle Patch. The Learning Plot was easy, as the cucumbers were starting to spread where I didn’t have it boxed and strawed. So that is what I did, and it maybe took 30 minutes or less. The Sugar Baby watermelons and White Spine cucumbers are very happy and both are producing like crazy. I know I found my cucumber that will produce even in 100‑degree days. Also, they are great for pickling or letting grow big as a slicer — they do not seem to get bitter when big. The watermelons are very prolific; today I spied a baby watermelon hanging from the fence. All I know is they are very happy and have several watermelons in all different stages.
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Once I was done, I went back to my plots and brought out the lawnmower to mow down the weeds and the spent dill pockets in the old summer and zucchini beds. I’m using the boxes temporarily to get the beds ready for my tri cover crops: crimson clover, daikon radish, and white mustard. I learned a trick with the boxes and the tape — if I leave the boxes out to get wet from dew or rain, it makes taking the tape off super easy. Once the boxes soften, I strip off the staples and tape, and while I’m waiting, they’re doing the job of suppressing weeds.
I did a final light watering of my fall bed and the calendula pockets, and then I was locking up when Fredericus decided to say hello. This time he had changed to a bright green and even let me take a short video. Isn’t he cute!
I closed the shed and let Fredericus stand guard—maybe catching some bad bugs for me. He’ll hop out when his shift ends.