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| J. Master Gardening Group (Click on any photo to enlarge) |
An hour is all that was needed on this steamy August morning to harvest 74 pounds of produce! These worker bee Junior Master Gardeners and friends didn't seem to mind the heat as they worked! We found some critters in the garden today...imported cabbage worms, aphids and flea beetles! We hand-picked the worms and watched ladybugs feast on the aphids. 
Just my own observation, but I believe the favorite veggie of the day to pick had to be the carrots! Harvesting a carrot is a bit like pulling a prize out of a grab bag! We sure hope it's a good one because we 
can't put it back! It was fun to watch the kids dig in the soil around the top of the carrot to see if it might be of good size and then give it a tug! Orange, purple, most perfectly shaped but a few with an extra "leg" or two just to make it interesting!
Did you know?
§ Carrots are a root veggie that grow more uniformly in loose soil free of stones and rocks to prevent splitting.
§ Carrot seeds are some of the tiniest you will ever plant!
§ The garden volunteers did a great job of thinning the carrot seedlings earlier this summer in order to give this root veggie room to grow!
§ Beta-carotene is the reason carrots have their bright color.
§ Our bodies convert the beta-carotene into vitamin A which is great for eye sight!
§ Carrots are one of the few veggies whose nutritional value remains high when raw or cooked whole.
--contributed by Master Gardener Kathy Luoma
