Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

cabbage

Monday in the garden

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I opened up the garden for an hour-plus. I fixed our sign and banner so it says 2011 (what I’d fixed before came off somehow).

Quite a few families visited, and I conversed quite pleasantly with someone who had just started a garden in his yard. I suggested that not much can be done with the flea beetle eating his cabbage, but thought it wouldn’t really hurt it that much.

I went along, more or less, with someone who asked why her pumpkin seedling turned yellow; too much water, she thought.

I gave three active boys glasses of water.

I tried to draw the “three-sisters” plot, but succeeded only in re-enforcing my admiration for Realist painters and my understanding why everyone changed to Impressionism!

Second-Season Cabbage

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Saturday we harvested the second-season cabbage, started about two months ago.  The heads were small, but there were heads!  It was a bit of a gamble to try, but the extra motivation was to use the space to show visiting children what cabbage looked like.  The small cabbage could have used a few more weeks to grow larger, but we had committed to returning the Garden back to the Park by November 1st this Pilot year, and so Saturday we harvested everything.

Fall Crop Update

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The peak of the harvest is past, and yet we tried second plantings of some crops because we had the space, to see what would happen.  With about a month to go, here’s their progress.

Cabbage & Cauliflower:  large leaves, producing well, but no sign of heads yet.

Carrots:  leafy fronds are doing well; no sign of poking out of the ground.

Beets:  alive but struggling.

Spinach:  mostly eaten by Something.

Peas:  half-height, base leaves yellowing, no sign of peas.

Lettuce:  looking good!  Might harvest some next week.

Also, here’s an update on some first plantings:

Eggplant:  *continues* to produce, though more slowly.

Beans:  the bush beans produced another handful; the pole beans have disappointed.

Potatoes:  we pulled a single plant to obtain some potatoes for display at Town Day.  The number amidst the roots was extensive, and while mostly small-to-tiny, there was at least one big red one.  From just one plant!

Squash:  the tiny zucchini was accidently harvested; there’s still a medium yellow squash; and the pattipan has several small fruits (not to mention flowers) which it thinks it has time to make bigger — we’ll see.

The mildew is back to some extent on the squash, and worse, has jumped to the other side of the garden and covered the collard leaves.

The rest of the greens (kale, chard, arugula and other herbs) still doing well.

Cabbage Splits!

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So maybe we waited a -little- too long.  All three cabbage were pulled today, and the green one was beginning to split.  Some claim that such splitting indicates over-watering, or perhaps watering more than usual (extra rains).  However, I think cabbages just do that when they’ve decided they’re big enough.  Perhaps both are true; quoting one web source:  "Splitting is caused by the pressure of excessive water taken up after the heads are solid."  One of the red cabbages looked a bit bigger than last week, but the other did not.  It was time to harvest.

Cabbage and Cauliflower Update

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Three small cabbage remain in the garden.  Some questioned whether they would grow any larger.  It was said that cabbages can be unpredictable as to how big they get.  It was also said that these three wouldn’t get any bigger.  But since it was pointed out that having different colored cabbage would be nice for the schoolchildren to observe, we decided to wait-and-see another week.

The cauliflower (and cabbage?) seeds planted two and three weeks ago were unsuccessful.  Last week (in my absence) more were planted, but this time under shade cloth, and they sprouted.