Eight hour day

That's what we put in yesterday in the garden:  an eight hour day.  Both of us.  The good news is that we could actually move this morning.  The bad news is that we didn't do much in the gardens today, only about 2 hours.  But that had to do with having another commitment that kept us out longer than we expected during the middle of the day.  Still, we did so much yesterday that I don't feel too awfully bad about slacking a little today.  We got the second garden tilled, raked, and partially planted and the first garden weeded and hoed.   Doesn't sound like much but, believe me, it was.  In addition to weeding and hoeing the first garden I also hilled up the three rows of potatoes that are in it. 

They're coming along nicely.

I did find three Colorado potato beetles, though, so I checked for them again this morning.  Thankfully, I didn't find any.  Doesn't mean they weren't there, but I didn't see them.  The eggplant on the end of the garden is actually intended to be a trap crop for them, so we'll see how well that works.   More of that companion planting stuff.  The potatoes are growing much more quickly than the eggplant, so I don't know how well that will work.  I'll keep you posted on that.  In the meantime, I'm going to make up a garlic spray for the garden that someone in my organic gardening class told me about and we'll give that a try, too.

So, progress so far:  garden #1 (20' x 75') is fully planted, garden #2 (40' x 50') is partially planted, and garden #3 (40' x 50')  has been tractor-tilled.  You've seen #1.  Here's #2:

In here, between yesterday and today, we planted 86 tomato plants (Red Brandywine, Yellow Brandywine, Sudduth's Strain Brandywine - aka Pink Brandywine, yellow pear, and red pear), 43 Genovese basil starts, and 10 Mexican jalapenos.  I still have all the Bull Nose Bell peppers to plant, along with some more sage.  The sage that I put between the rows of carrots is looking pretty good but I've lost a couple (rain?  rabbits?  dunno...) so I'll replace them with these that are left to plant.  In addition to the peppers and sage, I still have the other three varieties of melons, a couple of pumpkins, some acorn squash, and cucumbers.  The cucumbers haven't fared well and are looking pretty iffy, to the point that I think we're going to lose them.  That 2 weeks of rain really did us in.  We'll plant what we have and also direct seed them in the garden  - plenty of seeds left!  Sadly, we lost all of the habanero peppers.  They were looking great but that two weeks of rain was too much.  I'm going to start some more seeds tomorrow.  Hopefully, it's not too late.

This is garden #3:

This patch is exclusively dedicated to potatoes.  We bought 50 lb. of organic Kennebec seed potatoes which, based on information we have been able to find, should yield us somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 lb. of potatoes.  Yes, that was right:  4,000 lb.  We are, of course, hoping to sell them.  Or, at least, the vast majority of them.  Live local?  Wanna buy some potatoes in the fall?  I'll let you know when they're ready.