Carrots Before, Carrots After AND…the first harvest from the 2014 garden!

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On a sunny Monday, Junior Master Gardeners Sydney

and Annabelle joined Master Gardener Kathy in the garden.   We worked together to construct a few more cucumber trellises and then tackled the carrots before the weeds tackled them!  Since we eat the root part of a carrot, we want to be sure to give them lots of room to grow downward and expand outward!  See our section of carrot photos before and after! 

If you are interested in learning more about carrots and other root vegetable growth, check out the link from the University of MN Extension.  http://www.extension.umn.edu/garden/yard-garden/vegetables/growing-carrots-and-root-vegetables/

The girls also did a fantastic job of carefully

harvesting enough lettuce to share with Valley Outreach!  We can officially say we picked the first crop of the 2014 season…a whooping .45lbs!  It will be fun to watch that small number grow over these next few months.

We encountered a nice surprise as we were ready to leave!  Milkweed!  We have learned about its importance to monarch butterflies as it is the only

plant on which this black, orange and
white winged pollinator will lay its eggs and will eat in its caterpillar stage.  Using our detective skills, we found a tiny egg and a newly hatched caterpillar.  Great news for the garden!

- Contributed by Washington County Master Gardener Kathy Luoma

Welcome back SPIN kids! Thanks for bringing along your helping hands, strong muscles and sunny personalities!

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On Friday, a cheerful group of SPIN kids and their

helpful leaders joined Master Gardener Kathy in the garden.  We spent time reacquainting ourselves with the young plants, looking for cabbage worms on the cole crops (cabbage, broccoli, Brussel sprouts and those plants from the Brassica

family), catching teensy frogs, observing honeybees and butterflies and tasting a few stray strawberries.

Then we got to work!  We weeded the beet and carrot seedlings, as well as other areas of interest to the kids, so the plants will continue to grow without competition for water and nutrients.  Don’t choke me, weeds!  

Next, we constructed cucumber teepees using

three stakes, natural twine and rubber mallets!  The teepees will allow the cucumber vines to grow vertically to keep the fruit off the ground and hopefully out of critters mouths.  Chomp!  Way to use your muscles, kids!

Finally, big drinks of water and a bowl full of watermelon wedges cooled us off as we finished our tasks for the day! 

- Contributed by Washington County Master Gardener Kathy Luoma

Wednesday in the Giving Garden

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Another team from Woodbury Peaceful Grove United Methodist’s summer stretch program helped today in the giving garden. 

With the summer sunshine and plentiful rain, the plants are growing fast and so are the weeds.  It was a good day to get down on hands and knees to go after the weeds in the tomatoes, pinch back the sucker shoots and mulch with shredded office paper. 

What is a tomato sucker?  (click to open lesson)

A tomato sucker is a smallish shoot that grows

out of the joint where a branch on the tomato plant meets a stem.  These small shoots will grow into a full sized branch if left alone, which results in a bushier, more sprawling tomato plant. Because of this, many people
like to remove tomato suckers from the tomato plant. Removing the shoots also helps divert the plants energy into producing tomatoes instead of more vegetation.

Quick work in the tomato garden by our volunteers, Dave, Catie and Leta let us move on to the root vegetable crops.   Thanks for your willing hands!

Thinning rutabagas and turnips

The rutabagas, turnips and kohlrabies are about 4 inches high – the perfect size for thinning.  A spacing of 2 to 4 inches allows for the roots to fully develop without crowding.  We transplanted some of the small seedlings to fill in areas of the row that had not germinated as well.  A garden taste test of the thinned vegetables proved they were tender and flavorful even though they were tiny.   We thought later that we should have saved the turnip greens for salads and will remember that for next year.

Can you name this vegetable?

It’s broccoli!  Whether you love broccoli or hate it, it is one of the healthiest vegetables, easy to cook and high in vitamin C and A.  Broccoli is a member of the cabbage family and has large flower heads, usually green in color, arranged on branches sprouting from a thick, edible stalk.   We didn't see any insects in the broccoli this time but will keep our eyes out for cabbage caterpillars that might try to eat up the broccoli before we get to harvest time.

-  Contributing writer, Deb Lynch, Master Gardener