Week of Apr. 22nd.

Such a week we had! I’m slow reporting it as I had to get the pictures. At our monday night meeting we all worked in the gardens. We concentrated on getting as many people going on their raised beds as possible. Digging out weeds and grass turning the soil getting it ready to plant. My muscles were sore the next day.
Wednesday the 24th was our big field trip to Knoxville for the UT Institute of Agriculture’s Organic Crops Field Tour. David Cooke came down with the van and we filled his van and Bill drove the LMU van which we also filled. We had a great time socializing there and back and the program was fantastic. There were workshops on blueberries, cover crops, emerging pests, picking the right veggies for market, improved high tunnel production, ecological-based weed strategies, disease control in fruits and vegetables, soil fertility, and more. We gathered an immense amount of knowledge and new ideas. They fed us a fabulous southern lunch of greens, potato salad and barbecue. Oh and an very inspirational lunch talk by a couple(www.delvinfarms.com) with a family organic CSA farm. Sadly the thunderstorms came in the middle of the next to the last lecture so they had to send us home in a hurry. But all in all what a wonderful day of gathering knowledge and fellowship. Oh I should say one of my favorite things was the research they are doing with crimson clover. Wow it’s gorgeous and they are doing a lot of research along with other cover crops on controlling weeds and enriching the soil.

Then Thursday the 25th Mark came to put up our high tunnel. We had Bill,Chuck,Howard, Brenda, Rick, Iris, Storm, Eddie to help him. Unfortunately I couldn’t help all day but went at lunch to check on them and bring homemade cookies and it took me about an hour to get them to stop and eat lunch and replenish their fluids. Bill had brought the most wonderful barbecue he made from one of Iris’s pigs. I stopped back at 7:30 and they’d made a lot of progress but I thought they will never meet their goal of finishing today. I went over the next morning to see what I could do to help and there it sat ALL DONE!!!!

So in the days since we continue to care for our greenhouse plants and gear up to sell tomatoes and peppers in the next couple of weeks. They are growing like crazy. We’ve been enjoying the most Asparagus we’ve had since planting the patch in Spring 2010. We’ve got a record amount of potatoes planted including two new varieties All Blue and Rose Finn Apple. People continue to be working on their raised beds and Mr. Bill has been plowing the fields for planting. We were hoping to start planting corn and beans tomorrow but the rain that started yesterday and is continuing thru tues or wed is not going to allow that. Whew! Well take care fellow gardeners, Sue at LMU