Saturday, June 23, 2012

Starting the Change-over


Today I finally had the time, and a break in the rainy weather, to begin the switch in the kitchen garden from the Spring garden to the Summer garden. First on the "to-do" list was tearing out the radish bed. Once again, the radishes got away from me this year and I was only able to harvest about half of the crop. The remaining radish have now begun to bolt and send up seed stalks.


If you have never seen a radish seed stalk before, this is what they look like. Each one of those buds will produce a flower. After blooming and getting pollinated, the flower will dry and its pod will set seed.


I planted five different varieties of radish and it was interesting to see that they were producing different bloom colors. The is pretty one was a soft pink.


This was my favorite- a lovely purple petal with white centers.


And another flowering stalk.


After I got all of the radish pulled out and put on the compost heap, I went to work creating three new raised beds for the winter squash. That always seems like such an easy task and yet it always takes me so much longer than I think it will! After I finally completed the new beds, I planted the 6 new starts that I had purchased from Mountain View Farm at the Farmer's Market. This bed has two "Bush Delicata".


The middle bed hold two plants of classic "Waltham" Butternut.

And the last bed became home to two plants of  Kabocha "Orange Sunshine". This is a new variety for me so it will be fun to watch it and see how it performs this year.



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