Maintaining the Summer Garden - by Steven Miller, Garden Intern 2015

This week at Songaia was another unseasonably hot one. We’ve been starting earlier to beat the afternoon sun and in the early morning we spend it doing “weeding meditation” it’s a great time to talk and approach the day peacefully. 

Hard Working Bees

Evan and I installed more trellises for the beans (which have now been wrecked by a pesky mole) and for the tomatoes. A few weeks ago while walking through the garden I had observed that the tomato plants had appeared stunted in growth and had a distinct purple color in the veins. I had recognized these symptoms as a sign of magnesium deficiency and did a little research and came up with a solution. The tactic was to apply a topical solution of Epsom salts dissolved in water. Epsom salt consists of magnesium phosphate; it’s a wonderful way of adding the crucial compound to plants.  Without the magnesium chlorophyll cannot capture the suns energy that is needed for photosynthesis to occur. In short, magnesium is required to give leaves their green color but also aids in breaking down of organic matter.

It’s been another great week here at Songaia and I’m looking forward to furthering my adventures and relationships!

The Garden Gym - Moving Mulch

We took a field trip to the Beacon Hill food forest and it was a great chance for us to compare the differences between food forest design and technique (through plants used mostly). The majority of ground covers they utilize in their system were observed to be lupine and a variety of strawberry that didn’t seem to fruit much. 

Ripening Blueberries

Saving the arugula seed.