Updating our members (nudge, Jasmine :)

Hi everyone,

Jasmine's internet has been on the fritz at home; while I'm helping her brainstorm ways to overcome this adversity, I thought I'd share some nice pics that Ms. Ebright took at the end of Harvest week #6 (July 22nd):

(click to make bigger!)

The only thing you can't see in the 'everything we picked is in plain view!" picture #2 is the green onions, which are in the orange bucket on the ground. Oh, and of course, you also don't see Ms. Ebright, who selflessly took herself out of the picture in order to snap the photos.

You may have noticed in your box the following:

- broccoli (some of it, admittedly wierd; I don't know why so few plants are making the usual singular, dense floret in the middle)
- beets
- cucumbers
- serrano peppers (little dark green ones)
- hungarian hot peppers (larger yellow ones)
- golden cherry tomatoes (like the last few weeks)
- a different kind of small tomato (golden and shaped like small eggs; more tomato-like sour than the gold cherries)
- eggplant
- green onions
- some people got some late radishes (I hope they still taste OK)

I see some kinds of other squash growing now (our patch seems to have survived the vine borers) and there are some other fruits which I won't mention here, for fear that thieves may go looking for them like they did our cucumbers!

All the best to you all this scorching week; you should get a post from Jasmine soon, or else I'm going to fire her.

Just kidding :)

Mr. Mikulski

The rains this week were a blessing!

So, Jasmine slipped a bit on her duties this week, and did not have a post for ya'll. So, I told her I'd send some pictures and give you all an update on the past couple of weeks. What we're most excited about out here is the fact that we got a bit of rain on TWO SEPARATE days this week. While they weren't the monsoon-like downpours that the roots of our lovely plants would have liked, the precipitation was at least enough to refresh them a bit.

Our 'pumpkin patch,' which is fighting off some nasty bugs right now...

Here's Jasmine cutting some vicious thorns off an eggplant fruit...

Today we harvested these goodies from our plot.... hooray!

We put down some nematodes into the pumpkin patch on Friday; in time, we'll be able to tell if they infect and kill the vine borer larvae like they are supposed to. We'll watch and see if any new plants start to wilt and display a hollow stem...

Also, the eggplants are starting to come in. This week, you'll get a 'baby' eggplant, but next week it'll be a bit bigger... and the following week, a bit bigger still :)

Other things to watch for... golden cherry tomatoes are coming in in spades, and we may have larger tomato varieties to offer in about two weeks. Also, in the next week or two, our cucumber plants (provided we ward off the dreaded cucumber beetles) will have some ample-sized fruits for us.

One box for each of our share members... with "pom d'oro"s to spare :)

Thank you all for your support throughout this endeavor -- the kids are certainly also thankful, both for the experience, and for the summer job (via their internship with me and CPS). Also, hopefully my folks can get a better idea of what our garden is looking like, with the overview pics that I'm including here:

I know it may not seem like much, mainly because we can't water like my grandma does (twice a day, for as much as the plants can drink) and also because we let the grass and weeds grow in between the rows to cut down on water being lost from the soil due to evaporation. But, if you're there in person, let me assure you that it is looking good! (our neighbor, soul legend Syl Johnson, came over today and said so himself :)

Until next time,
Mr. Mikulski

Bugs attack!

 Today, we watered the plants that were inside of the school.after, we went outside and we started watering the pumpkin plants and we started noticing that there were insects eating our plants. Mr. Mikulski caught one of the bugs, which had wings, in a red cup. This flying bug did not appear to be eating, but was attracted to the yellow flowers. There were dozens of them walking around inside them!

the cucumber beetles are in this cup

Later, I did some research on the internet and discovered that one of the insects that were eating our plants was the squash vine borer larvae, which at this stage in its development eats the inside of the plant.

the larvae ate up pretty much all of this plants stem!

The other insect was called the cucumber beetle, which was in the mating stage of its life cycle. We did a little research about it and found out ways to keep the bugs away from our garden in the future. We also found out a way to kill the bugs now. Our plan was to buy a container of nematodes and, using a baby syringe, apply it to the stem wherever we see the holes from the bug eating. Mr. Mikulski and I found out a way the nematodes work was to water the plants with worms and when the worms get inside of the grubs it will let out a bacteria inside of it and it will kill the grub.

After, we did our research we spent the rest of our time outside watering and mulching. We also had water while we were working.

WP harvest day #3, and first day of our internship

Yesterday on June 30th, 2012 was our third harvest day. Even though there was a big storm, but i still managed to come. I met Mr. Mikuski's wife's sister and she was from Germany. She helped out at the garden and also had a chance to harvest with us. We had to wait until the storm was over to pick our vegetables which took us about 30 minutes, but it was worth it. These are some of the things we picked listed below:

1). Beets
2). peppers(both yellow and green)
3). Tomatoes
4).Lettuce
5).  zucchini squash

After we picked our vegetables, we did a little weeding to kill some of the plants that weren't supposed to be there. Luckily, we did'nt have to water because there was so much rain.

That was Sunday. Today, Monday, was the first day of our paid internship. Mr. Mikulski found a way to have CPS pay us for our work in the garden. So, we started by doing a survey for our internship that mostly talked about how we carry ourselves. We had snacks and water before we went outside to plant. We planted salads and corn. Even though it was so hot outside i still wanted to plant so that our garden can become a big success. There were alot of bees outside that i never seen before that kind of made me scared. We drunk water so that we would'nt become dehydrated. After, we planted we watered it, because the sun was out and our plants can become thirsty without water.