We love summer here in Lucille’s Garden. The long warm days, beautiful plants, and singing birds are such a welcome reprieve after a cold winter. And this spring has been especially kind. With cool temperatures and plenty of rain, the plants are growing well and celebrating the good life.
It’s hard to believe that it’s already time to retire some of our favorite spring crops. The broccoli rabe in Bed E has made way for tomatoes, and we harvested the bok choy and seeded the space where it grew with calendula and okra. It’s always hard to pull these crops, even when they are replaced with summertime favorites, but we know we will see them again come fall when cool weather returns.
Even with the cold winter and cool spring, we started harvesting the same week we did last year, with the first donation of the season going to the Food Bank for Delaware County on April 24. That harvest included an astonishing 7 lbs. of perennial sorrel, and 2 lbs. of asparagus. We love to share the bounty of the garden with our neighbors and are so grateful for the hard work of the community at the Food Bank for Delaware County!
There’s been plenty to keep us busy in the last few weeks. The beginning of May marks a time of frantic planting and seeding to get everything all set for the late spring and summer season. There’s also weeding, watering, staking and harvesting as the days get longer and warmer!
In particular, this time of year we’re hard at work on the following tasks.
1. Pulling spring crops and rotating in summer staples
Cool weather favorites like lettuce, broccoli, mustard and bok choy don’t like the warmer temperatures. As the thermostat climbs, these plants tend to turn bitter, or bolt. So we harvest from them one last time, thank them for everything they’ve given, and pull the plants to compost. In their place we plant heat-loving crops like tomato, beans, cucumbers, melon and more. In the next few weeks you’ll see the rest of the beds turn over and get settled for a long summer season.
2. Staking, trellising, and caging
Our summer crops might look small now – but they won’t for long! Plants like beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and eggplant benefit from a little extra support. We’re using cattle panel trellises, cages, and sticks cut from the meadows here at Tyler to give our crops the support and air flow they need as they grow. It’s much easier to stake or trellis these plants when they are small, rather than working with them when they get larger, so we like to trellis, cage or stake at the time of planting.
3. Tending to long-season crops
We’re also growing some long-season crops in the garden that we’ll continue to maintain until they come to harvest. Our garlic is growing well. Planted in October 2024, we expect to dig this fragrant crop in mid-July. In the meantime, we’ll keep the beds top dressed with compost and water when the days get hot and dry.
We’re also growing potatoes that we planted in the ground on April 3. Potatoes are a remarkable crop. We bought in 2 lbs. of seed potatoes and green sprouted them, or put them in indirect sun until they began to form roots, then cut the potatoes into pieces. It’s important in this process to make sure you leave at least 2 eyes for each potato piece, then to set them aside for a few days so that they can callous.
Once we planted them, we waited. In the beginning of May, the potato plants popped up above the ground, and now they are growing so well that we spent some time composting around each one using compost from our own bins. This process, sometimes called hilling, encourages the potatoes to grow taller and produce more roots, which leads to more potatoes.
We’re looking forward to a long growing season, full of beautiful days, delicious food, and hopefully plenty of rain. Stop by and visit next time you’re at Tyler. No matter who you are, or where you come from, you are welcome here in this garden. Together we welcome the opportunity to practice gratitude and optimism amongst vibrant plants, local food, and a connected and growing community.
Happy (almost) summer!
