Oh yeah, mulch.

By the way, I got a little impatient waiting for the Horticulture department to deliver mulch to us, so I bought 9 cu. ft. worth at Lowe's, just to see how much it would cover. Turns out, not a lot. We definitely need to get at least half of our mulch from Physical Plant, or we'll go broke getting everything covered to the appropriate depth. We'd probably need another dozen bags (3 cu. ft. each) to even come close. But it's looking really nice!

I just picked some salad greens for dinner tonight too. Two kinds of lettuce and spinach. Yum....

New pics: now with not enough nitrogen!

Based on the images and descriptions from the web site Jim linked to below, my best guess is that the yellowing leaves on some of the tomato plants indicate a slight nitrogen deficiency. The same problem has sprung up on one of the pepper plants as well.

I'm curious about calcium. I'm wondering where you would get it. Does it come as part of the package for most organic fertilizers, or do you apply it separately? Calcium deficiencies are what lead to blossom end rot, something I'd like to avoid as much as possible this year, and something that seems to happen a bit each year to our tomatoes. Boron is another trace mineral we should find out more about, as a lack of it can cause pitting corky, woody areas on the fruits (something else we've seen before).

Here's a couple of images to update how the garden is coming along:


The full garden (a couple of bean vines have made it past the top of the trellis!)


Our "salad" frame

nearly done!

today was productive-- aaron and i finished up the bed edges. i laid the weed barrier down and pinned it down to the bed edges. it looks really sharp. what's left to do is mark the two inches from the top of each square foot bed (a yard stick would help draw the lines) and staple the weed barrier against the wood.

one of the bean plant reached the top of the trellis today.

i did the first of our twice seasonal epsom salt applications using the handy ortho feeder. used about 1.5 tbs of epsom salt per gallon. I sprayed our beds down thoroughly. having a lot of left over, even the class garden got a light gulp.

i looked up an article on tomato plant mineral deficienies with really good photographs. not sure whats causing the yellow leaves and brown spots on our peppers and tomatoes. but at least they got a good dose of magnesium + sulphur [epsom salts = magnesium sulphate] today. The bone meal -- which can feed for up to 6 months -- was mixed into our square foot bed growing medium -- provides a lot of phosphorus and calcium, plus a bit of nitrogen and iron. and we mixed in the slow feeding Espoma Organic Plant Tone. and then the coffee grounds.... hmmm.

growing onions

I stopped by the garden, just long enough to pick out a salad. mmm, it was delicicious! the first of the season-- and still plenty left for other people to get some too.

aaron watered the garden today as well.

neither of us know what to do about the onions. it took me longer to blog this than it did to find the article