Arrowleaf Farms: Plenty of Rain

Last weekend was beautiful, but I had to drive to Seattle for work. This weekend would be well spent driving somewhere; it's been about 40 degrees, raining and the wind blowing like crazy.

We did get the shallots weeded last weekend.

Also, Shawn created some attractive garlic labels. We've usually worked with just a map, so until it's dug up usually we don't know which variety it is. The plastic labels we put in in the fall are for some reason attractive to the elk, who pull them out, bite holes in them, and scatter them about. We're hoping that these do better.

All progresses in the greenhouse. The aphid scare that presented itself seems to have been somewhat neutralized by the soapy water. Due to infestation, the artichokes were moved outside. That seems to have controlled the aphids, but the earwigs have done way more damage. The leaves are very holey (oops, forgot to take a picture). I believe that earwigs are the most despised insect in our garden.

Teri and Shawn transplanted all of the tomatoes and the eggplant. They look really good! The greenhouse is filling up, but not overflowing yet.

Today, since it was too wet to plant things in the actual ground, we started more things for the greenhouse. They include fennel, dill, red basil, cilantro, parsley, and lettuce in the tiny cell tray and various kinds of summer squash in the root trainers. (Shawn always likes to have the first zucchini from the Grande Ronde Valley at market.) All the seeds have been dragged out again and sorted into yet more piles--things we're done with for the year, things that should go out into the actual ground ASAP, things that are going to wait until the soil warms up dramatically.
Saturday I researched pinching back the basil. It's a simple enough concept when it's already a bushy plant, but I don't get how far to go when there aren't any branches yet. While reading various non-helpful websites, I did come across the tidbit that when the temperature drops below 50 degrees basil leaves turn yellow. That was good news as Shawn and I had earlier in the day been pondering what was wrong with some of the basils. Was there some sort of bug? Lack of nutrition? It's good to know it's just because it was cold. Sunday I just nipped back the growing tip of half the basil. We'll see what happens.
Tomorrow we will hopefully fertilize--a delicious combination of seaweed and fish emulsion applied foliarly. Then we'll have to stay out of the greenhouse until the stench dissipates.
I did get some chard planted in the ground. We'll see if it comes up. I'd like to get the next batch of radishes in.

April 24 Photos