It’s May! The Busiest Month at the Orchard

May 24, 2017

Don’t blink. You might miss something. Everything is growing and gardens are glowing. Welcome new gardeners Mitch, Michael and Stuart.

Michael and Stuart got an early start by protecting some plants with saran wrap.

Sue has a second food bank bed, and not surprising, it looks professional. We took nine pounds of greens from her hoop to the food bank today.

The word spread like fire around town last week that someone caught a codling moth in a trap. We raced to get the apples and pears protected by installing nylon ‘footies’ plus netting.

While adding the footies to the apples we could see that the bugs are busier than we are. Here are two ladybugs on the Fuji. Well … they can’t both be ladies. And newly hatched spiders in the Liberty, all scrambling out, ready to explore. Ladybugs and spiders are two of the best beneficial insects for the orchard.

Kate and Elley carved out a new garden bed in a couple of hours. A day later, Sue attacked and created a nice looking nest for the hot peppers. The weed barrier paper is OMRI certified organic and biodegradable. What a nice looking nest for the pepper plants.

Since we can’t control ourselves at plant sales there are a few new plants in the north end. Come and find the new Salvia Hot Lips (Slavia Microphylla) and the Sapphire Blue Sea Holly (Erngium). Ciscoe Morris himself told us these two plants would give us the August flowers that the pollinators need.

All of this activity in the space of about a week! We hope the show slows down a bit in June.

Ruth