Lost Crops

Well, those little stripped beetles really did some damage. My son Sylus (3) and I had fun squishing as many as we could, and I sprayed as well (and will again this week), but they certainly got ahead of us. The cucumber transplants were completely destroyed, as were the summer squash and cucumber seedlings that were just emerging from the soil. The pumpkins were damaged, but were far enough ahead that I think they will pull through.

I removed the summer squash entirely and instead planted eggplant and lettuce seedlings into that bed. These two crops are of no interest to striped cucumber beetles, so they will be safe. The bed that contained cucumbers will need to remain cucumbers, because it is an extra wide bed to provide for the large amount of space required by cucumber vines, and there is nowhere else in the garden left that we can create such a large bed.

I am going to spray again for the beetles this week and then seek out some summer squash and cucumber seedlings. The as seeds sprout and emerge from the ground they get completely destroyed by the beetles before they can even really get going. If I can find some transplants, not only will we make up for all the time we have lost with the destruction of these crops, but the transplants will also have a much better chance of surviving the beetles. If any of you have extra cucumber or summer squash seedlings that your garden has no room for, we would welcome them at camp!

I will also be sure to try to get the pumpkins a nice layer of compost this week. Not only is it helpful for them because they have just had to struggle against the beetles, but sometimes a particularly bad infestation of pests can tell us that our crops were struggling a bit in the first place- perhaps due to a lack of soil nutrients. Though there are many reasons why a particular pest may get really bad (what was planted the year before, how the season's rain/temperature are, if the pest is introduced on seedlings etc, and many other factors), it may be due in part to the plants not being hardy enough. Whatever the reason, our pumpkins will be happy to get some food!

Striped Cucumber Beetles!

The big discovery of this morning was that our tiny summer squash, cucumber, and pumpkin plants are being heavily eaten by striped cucumber beetles. I visited the MOFGA pest report from last week, June 8th (www.mofga.org/Publications/PestReports/PestReports2010.aspx) and learned that I can use an organic pesticide called pyrethrum on the beetles. Pyrethrum is made from the crushed flowers of the chrysanthemum plant (you know, those colorful daisy-like flowers that everyone buys at Halloween). I went to the nursery and got some and will apply it tonight, as the beetles are most active in the morning and evening, so this is the best time to apply.

How sad it is to see so many of the little plants filled with holes, and some of them dead entirely. Everyone cross their fingers that we can get ahead of the beetles, and ensure a cucumber, squash, and pumpkin harvest!

The Three Sisters

The Three Sisters is a native american planting method where corn, beans, and a winter squash are grown together. The reason these three are grown together is so that each can provide aid to the other: the corn provides a tall stalk that the beans can twine up, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil to feed the other plants, and the squash or pumpkins shade the ground, keeping it cool and preventing weeds from growing. I also recently read that the hispid (or bristly, rough) leaves of the squash keep raccoons away from the corn.

A few weeks ago I dug 15 smalls hills (about 3' x 4' and about 8 or 10" tall) and transplanted pumpkin seedlings and planted miniature popcorn seeds into alternating hills. The corn has just come up, and is now about 2 inches tall. I will wait until the corn is between 4 and 6 inches tall before I plant the beans. Because beans grow so much faster than corn, it is important to give the corn a good head start.

The Mysterious Brassicas

One of the first crops that I transplanted into the garden was the brassicas. Brassicas, or cole crops, are species from the genus Brassicaseae. These include cabbage, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, colrabi, as well as the cultivated and wild mustards. These crops like the cool, damp weather of early spring and fall, so they are one of the first plantings.

Our little transplants were rescued from the compost pile at Milkweed Farm (www.milkweedfarm.wordpress.com) in Brunswick, Maine. They had been discarded because there was no room left for them in the field during the succession of planting. But because I got them from the compost pile there is really no way of knowing if they are cabbage, broccoli, or kale, or what variety of each they might be. I have a pretty good knowledge of what the seedlings of all these crops look like, but they are all so similar, that I am still just making an educated guess. I believe that most of what I brought to Ketcha is broccoli, a couple are cabbage, and one is kale. But I really am not sure. They are doing great, however, growing strong, and it won't be too long before they are beginning to bear and then we'll know for sure what they are. So when you are in the garden, take a wander past the brassicas, and see if you can guess who is going to grow into what!

Early Season Succession Crops

After preparing the beds and soil, we began planting. We started with early crops –carrots, lettuce, radish, beets, spinach, and kale– which were direct seeded into the ground. These were planted in successions. What this means is that we planted one row of each, then about two weeks later, we planted a second row of each. What this does is ensure that we get a longer harvest: instead of all our carrots being ready at once, a first crop will be ready, then a couple weeks later the second crop will be ready.

We also practiced inter-cropping in these early beds, particularly with the carrots and radishes. Carrots are a relatively slow growing crop, while radishes are one of the fastest in the garden. Because of this, they are great crops to share a bed: the radishes are up and ready to harvest before the carrots really need any space. We harvest the radishes just as the carrots begin to need some more room.

Today, the radishes are just about big enough to start to pick. They need to be thinned soon, so that they have enough space to get bigger. The carrots are still tiny little seedlings. The first succession of lettuce is a few inches tall, and it too needs to be thinned. The early succession of spinach has its first true leaves. ("True leaves" are the second set of leaves that appear when a seedling emerges. (In grass crops it is a single leaf that appears from the seed, not a set of two leaves as with all other plants.) The first set of leaves to appear are called cotyledon leaves, because they are actually the two interior halves –or cotyledons– of the seed. The "true" leaves are called this because they look like what we typically recognize as a spinach or carrot leaf.) The beets are a couple inches tall and also need to be thinned. The lettuce and the beets will wait to be thinned until they are a bit bigger so that the removed little leaves can become a salad– they are still just a bit too small for that now.

Spring Preparations

Dig, dig, dig. That has been the name of the game this spring. The soil at Camp Ketcha has a lot of clay in it. Because of this it does not drain water easily, so I decided early this spring that it would be important to grow in raised furrows. I laid out sections that would be walked-in rows, and sections that would be planted beds. I then dug a layer of soil from the rows, and put it onto the beds. What this means is that the soil that we are growing our plants in is slightly higher than everything else, which allows these areas to drain a little bit better. This process also loosened and aerated the soil, which is important before planting seeds and transplanting seedlings, because the tiny roots of the new plants can have a difficult time working their way into soil that is too compacted.

An additional task that I did this spring to support healthy soil in the garden was to amend the soil with composted manure. We are lucky here at Ketcha to have a heard of horses that provide quite a bit of organic matter that we can use to feed our soil. Adding organic matter to the soil not only will provide nutrients to our plants, but also improves the texture of the soil, again, creating tiny spaces in the soil for plant roots and soil creatures (like worms, bugs, bacteria, fungi, and other little garden helpers).

Welcome to the Camp Ketcha Garden Blog! This is the place for you to follow all that is happening in the Camp Ketcha children's garden. Over the summer I will be writing about what is going on in the garden and will be transcribing the daily and weekly garden journal that campers are keeping. So whether you are a camper visiting soon, one who recently did some work in the garden, or just and interested community member, please follow our blog to keep up to date on all that we are doing, observing, and learning.