By Lynea Petty, Food Production Manager

Whew! First things first – just like the vegetables need more water in these temperatures, so do you! Stay hydrated and keep yourself sun protected!

Out at Bloom Farm, we are harvesting what I like to call ‘all the heavy stuff’. This means: potatoes, summer squash, green beans, cucumbers, eggplants, tomatoes, garlic, etc. Don’t forget to select garlic to save and use in October to plant for next year’s crop!! We are ‘feeding’ our hoop house tomatoes every other week with a Sul-Po-Mag mixed into the irrigation system. And we continue to use fish fertilizer every other week for summer squash, basil, eggplants, tomatoes and tomatillos, all planted outside of our hoop house. It’s challenging to seed arugula, spinach, radish, lettuce, etc. with this much heat, considering our drip system, so we are spraying the beds with a hose as well to keep the top half inch moist enough for seeds to germinate.

Some fails have been our second planting of broccoli – it bolted too fast to get a good harvest on the main heads. Just an unfortunate casualty of the hot temperatures and timing of planting. And I mistakenly seeded a bed of bok choy and a bed of lettuce too deep. I forgot to check the depth setting on our Earthway seeder!!! Whoops! We have reseeded now, and things are popping up, but it will mess up a little bit of our ability to have things consistently. Watch your seeding depth!

Flowers are looking really good right now – perfect time of season to make bouquets!

Here is what we are up to this month: (see resource list below)
*DS = directly seeding into the soil; TP – transplanting from a tray begun in the greenhouse

Week of August 3:
Greenhouse/Indoor seeding: head lettuce, cilantro
Outdoor seeding and transplanting: Kale TP, Radish DS, Turnips DS, Bok Choy DS, Cilantro DS, Spinach DS, Lettuce DS

Week of August 10:
Outdoor seeding and transplanting: Arugula DS, Lettuce DS, Head Lettuce TP, Spinach DS

Week of August 17:
Greenhouse/indoor seeding: nothing
Outdoor seeding and transplanting: Radish DS, Cilantro TP

Week of August 24:
Greenhouse/indoor seeding: nothing
Outdoor seeding and transplanting: nothing
Looking ahead to September: we are done planting! Until Garlic in October.

Where to find resources:
Compost – Winn’s Compost. Sun Valley Garden Center. We buy in bulk
Fertilizer – all can be ordered online, some can be purchased locally at garden stores; and garden stores are also happy to order it in for you specifically. Organic pelleted chicken manure: https://www.therichlawncompany.com/richlawn-5-3-2-organic/ ; Bat Guano: https://concentratesnw.com/catalog/soil-amendments/ferts/44-8-3-1-planb-hi-n-bat-guano/; Alfalfa meal: https://concentratesnw.com/catalog/soil-amendments/ferts/40-org-alfalfa-meal/