Middlebrook Farm School: July 2015

We are in what I consider to be two, sometimes three, of the most crucial months in a garden's life and potential success.

Early July through mid September is when you will face most of the struggle against other plants, animals, and minerals that want to take advantage of the garden you have so dutifully watched over.

If you have been relaxed in your weeding policies during June and into July, and you do not eradicate them now, in the heat of summer the weeds will take over.

Water can be a significant issue as well, and a day or two without some moisture can have long term effects that the plants cannot recover from.

Critters, such as foxes, raccoons, and skunks (if you have poultry), woodchucks, and rabbits, are leaving their nests as juveniles and can be adept at infiltrating the wire, sometimes with an unbelievably prescient skill for knowing when crops are at their peak and wiping them all out before sunrise.

These are three reasons among many why this is the time for vigilance over your garden or else any one of these interlopers, including molds, fungi, and the calendar, can bring a halt to the garden.

These added challenges of high-summer can also be compounded by the fact that this is the time when many people go on vacations of a week or more,

and sometimes the building is closed when we can tend to it.

Without automatic irrigation or a friendly neighbor, and at least a slight lead over the weeds many gardens succumb to the forces of nature that can dominate fragile fruits and vegetables seemingly in the course of one night sometimes during this part of the growing season.

That being said, things at the Farm School are looking pretty good. We have been on top of the weeds and a small infestation of potato beetles was fairly simple to 86 from the potato bed; otherwise we have been fortunate in many other ways. It is really a nice sight to see and we hope that if you are in the neighborhood you will take a look at what is happening. Most of everything has a label written on a plastic fork so you can tell what is what. Feel free to pick the peas. They are in the shell, but if you pop them out they are still sweet.