After I moved the black plastic tarp from the top of the garden to the lawn at the bottom and the woodchips got dumped on it because the truck couldn't safely make it up the incline at the top of the garden, I bought another $32 piece of black plastic, laid it at the top of the garden, and Dan and Jeremy used the bucket tractor to move all the chips to the top of the garden where i wanted them. My plan is to have a big woodchipped area there, with a pile of woodchips to use throughout the summer and into next spring perhaps. The campers and I started putting them on the permanent garden paths (I've measured out the garden into permanent 4 foot wide plots and 2 foot wide paths). It makes the garden look so meat, and now it's easier to tell the kids: only walk on the woodchips!
As you can see, the tomatoes are growing rapidly in this heat. The big bush on the left is tarragon. Kay's junior farmers helped me put in some tarragon transplants that I'd dug a month ago into the back of the herb garden...my plan is to do away with this big bush of tarragon once the new ones get well established---probably by next summer, maybe this fall.
The herbs are growing beautifully. The basil is also loving the heat! The calendula at the front of the herb garden are floweing...all yellow so far, no orange yet. The towering sorrel and lovage flower stalks are getting cut down this week. Next the to herb garden is a row of carrots (in the box), 1 zuchine hill, peppers, brocolli, swiss chard, beets, and radish. the farm campers helped to plant more radishes, and pull a few, and to put in more of Amy's pepper seedlings. Behind them, you can see, the beans are growing abundantly.
The lavender is beautiful!
The garlic has scapes (seed heads, which we've begun cutting) and I ate the first delicious raspberry....lots more on the way!
The strawberry patch is almost picked out. The kids made jam again on Saturday, this time with a recipe with much less sugar. They also made bread (containing some wheat they ground into flour themselves...plus a lot of traditional white flour--we'd tried it with half and half during staff training, and it turned out like a rock!) and they hand-churned cream into butter. they all said it all tasted great at the camp earthday breakfast this morning. Camp has a special focus on ehalthy food this summer. The SOL campers went to a strawberry farm and picked strawberries on Saturday, and also went to 2 farmers markets and bought delicious green peppers and cantaloupes.
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