Garden update June 8, 2025: watering, mulch, wabbits

6/8/2025

It's been fun seeing your plants jump up! It's not too late to reseed.

Here's the latest from the garden.

Wabbit!

There's a young cottontail hanging around the garden eating indiscriminately. You may need to protect your plants. Use these plastic mesh segments on the picnic table. I left landscape staples to hold them in place.

Watering best practices

I make students use watering cans in the garden. If you're alone with your kid, they can use the hose, but keep it moving. Simulate rain.
If it's over 80 degrees, it's hard to overwater. When in doubt, water on a hot day.
It's normal for plants to wilt a bit in the midday sun, even when well watered.
The finger is the best moisture sensor. Check conditions beneath the soil surface.
Water less, or not at all, if we got 0.5" of rain or more on the previous day/night.
On a hot day, 50% of the water you distribute will evaporate, which leads back to point 2.
Water around the base of the plant, not over the top of the foliage.

I will put a dry erase board and pen near the garden gate to write down when you've watered on a particular day. Example: "Watered Sunday 8:30 am."

Mulch is important

Once your seeds have sprouted, it's time for a layer of mulch. I put out wheat straw for you to use. Mulch insulates your plants' root zones, keeping soil cooler and moister.

Living mulch

Alternately, many plots have clover or vetch growing in them. These are better than straw because they outcompete weeds and fix nitrogen, a key plant nutrient.

So water/encourage these plants; I can provide their seeds.

Vetch seedling

Clover growing amid kale

Now harvesting

Lettuce and spinach in the greenhouse

Spinach and hakurei sweet turnips--Middle bed

Strawberries and honeyberries--just a few--west side

Needed

Sprouting potatoes

If you see a big bale of straw for sale, grab it! It's hard to find in the city.

Take me home

Swamp milkweed seedlings. Take if you can use. This is a host plant for monarch butterflies and many other bugs. Needs full sun and prefers damp soil.

Help here

Would be great if someone could weed out all these stray chive seedlings here in the north bed. They're totally edible. Use a trowel to pry out their roots. Water well to ease extraction.