Day 56

Garden party at 6am???  Could be the earliest party in Biostation history, or at least so says Knute at dinner tonight.  It was indeed a party of four with myself, Jen, Lisa, and Jill.  We harvested so much, including two bushels of greens, boatloads of radishes, green onions, turnips, and beets.  After harvest, we brought all the produce down to the dining hall to display while people were coming in to breakfast.  The effect was awesome, and the garden was publicly applauded by Knute (the director of the Biostation) at dinner.  Here is the spread:

There were some of the first cherry tomatoes ripe in the garden in the morning, but those never made it to the dining hall as they were reserved for party-goers along with a little basil to make scrumptious sandwiches!

Day 55

This past weekend I spent at the music festival Blissfest, so I was not around to play in the garden.  I did get to show the garden off to many of my good friends on Sunday, and was very excited to see their reactions.  Unfortunately some things in the greenhouse did not fare well without water and were pretty zapped.  But for everything else things grew to epic proportions and it was time this morning for a large harvest.

Bright and early I went up to the garden with Jill, and we harvested an enormous bounty.  Beets, turnips, lots of radishes, and tons of greens all went into baskets, were displayed in front of the dining hall during breakfast, and then made it into the kitchen.  This evening dinner featured greens exclusively from the garden (including swiss chard harvested last week) as well as radishes and kohlrabi.  It was sooooo yummy and there was even enough to restock the greens once they were all gone. And the best part is that there is plenty more ready to harvest, so tomorrow morning we are going to have a little harvest party at 6AM! 

Day 51

Today we had a whirlwind tutorial on watering in the garden.  I have been recruiting help with things like watering and composting, and I wanted to show people what can be done when they are helping out.  Unfortunately we were a little stressed for time, as the all-camp photo and volleyball games were happening shortly after the tutorial.  Hooray water!

Day 50

Another great harvest this morning.  Some of the swiss chard needed thinning, and between four rows I cut just under a bushel that will hopefully go into some kind of soup later this week.  I also harvested the first peppers from the greenhouse as well as a whole bunch of radishes.  Bon appetite!

Day 49

A great harvest this morning!  Woke up to early morning wet and went to the garden alone for some meditative time.  I harvested a bushel of beet greens and spinach which made for a very hardy lunch salad.  With the combination of rain and heat, things have been growing like crazy, though some of the cool season crops like spinach are starting to bolt.  That's all for now!

Day 47

Happy 4th of July!!!  Today we had an excellent work party in the garden.  Starting at 9am people came up to the garden to help plant tomatoes and onions, weed, thin, and harvest!  With advertising by word of mouth and through the message board, about eight or nine people showed up enthusiastically.  We accomplished lots of things I have been meaning to do but lacking the time for, and the garden is happy for all the help.  There are now more cherry tomatoes in the ground, more green onions, thinned swiss chard and beets and much more!  Thanks so much for the help everyone! 

Best of all, we were able to harvest a bounty that we will likely eat tomorrow night for dinner.  There was almost a bushel and a half of greens, the first few beets, radishes, the last of the kohlrabi, and the first of the green onions.  Delicious!

Day 45

After a busy week with my research job, today I was finally able to spend some time with the garden.  After doing a little watering and weeding, Jill and I drove to Cheboygan to pick up some supplies.  We bought bushel baskets for harvesting, in addition to a whole slurry of seeds, onion sets, and asparagus roots to plant.  My plan is to try growing some sprouts this summer, so we picked up some different seeds in bulk for that end.  The types of seeds I will be trying are radish, sunflower, bean, and pea.  I will give an update on the sprout progress as I figure things out.