Erin's Garden Journal—June 14th, 2015

Truly responsible gardeners keep journals. They note down what they plant and when they plant it; weather patterns; the daily changes of their garden. Garden journals become a vastly useful resource the next year when they can look back to see what plants thrived, what spots got the best summer sun, and what experiments it would be wise to never repeat again.

In permaculture, since we are trying to work as closely as possible with the landscape and natural patterns of our site, journals become doubly important.

You would think that knowing all this would have motivated me to start keeping one before now.

To help my self-motivation, and to spread knowledge as we acquire it, I'm going to post my journal entries here. I can't replicate the grubby marks of soil-covered fingers that decorate the original, but I'll stick with the point-form notes of a gardener anxious to put down the pen and get back to work.

Saturday June 13, 2015
The week of heavy rain a mixed blessing for the new fruit trees. On Sunday we planted what looked like sticks with roots; over the week the put out a few dozen leaves each but also lost some in the big storm. The cherry has many branching leaf clusters. The apples have leaf-covered main trunks reaching up. The pears have just a few leaves at the top.

Tasks performed:
  • Thinned the carrots. Will need thinning again soon.
  •  Mulched around the strawberries, which are ripening but got plastered with soil in the storm.
  • Final seedlings have been in hoop house one week. Looking more vigorous. 
  • Gave hills and collars to the weaker-stemmed tomatoes.
  • Deadheaded the sage.
  • Cut and sanded pieces for rain barrel stands
  • Brenda worked on burlap repairs for the raised beds.
  • Lawrence moved posts on spiked braces (Google says it's called an E-Z Spike) from old church sign; will be used for new garden sign once sanded and stained.
  • Pat moved curved part of path to be in front of westmost fruit tree instead of behind, and to be a few feet from each fruit tree. Concern that its original placement would be impractical once the canopies grow and spread.

Sunday June 14, 2015
Agonized over new planting plan for the sheet mulched bed since the one I developed in the early spring had to be abandoned. Is it too late in the season now to start the polyculture plantings I had in mind? Decided that this week I will invite anyone available to join me on the first non-rainy evening to plant a small polyculture as an experiment, and the same plants in rows for comparison.

Anxious to get something in the ground, went out with an umbrella to plant:
  • Corn for Three Sisters planting. Made four smallish hills at back of sheet mulched bed and planted four kernels in each. Will plant pole beans next, once corn is well sprouted. 
  • A short row-and-a-half of Six Week Bush Beans (Urban Harvest), left over from my home garden last year.
  • Jewel-Toned Nasturtium Mix (Cubit's) at sunny edge of sheet-mulched bed
  • Nasturtium Trailing Mix (Urban Harvest) above the hugelkultur mound's mulch collar

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