"The good rain, like the bad preacher, does not know when to leave off." - Ralph Waldo Emerson The normal workday was cancelled due to rain and specially thunderstorms. Despite the cancellation, a small group got together to harvest essentials so food would not spoil (beans, squash and tomatoes). The harvest weighed in at 45 pounds on Tuesday. Garden Report from Thursday: Butterfly Garden: Julie Mangin I couldn't bear to stay away from the garden until next week, so I stopped by today. Good news! Three monarchs were chasing each other around in the butterfly garden. Also two great spangled fritillaries, a buckeye, tiger swallowtail, spicebush swallowtail, painted lady, least skipper, zabulon skipper, and common checkered skipper. About the attached photo, I thought it was funny that there are plenty of flowers to go around in the garden, but these two butterflies HAD to be on the same flower, for some reason. Enjoy! Edibles: Mary Anne Normile and Erica Smith Another small group got together to do a more thorough harvest on Thursday: Harvested: boatloads of beans, tons of tomatoes, eggplant, squash,okra, cucumbers, basil, Swiss chard, peppers, red and golden beets, in addition to what was harvested by the intrepid rainy-day pickers on Tuesday. Thanks to Anne for taking today's harvest to Manna. Planted: Tronchuda cabbage (aka Portuguese kale) under row cover and shade cloth, Swiss chard. Tending: Not much tending because of the short day and heat/humidity, but all the basil in the raised beds has been afflicted with basil downy mildew, despite it being a partially-resistant variety ("Eleonora"). Removed all the basil plants, harvested what leaves we could for Manna. There wasn't time for bug patrol, but we felt the surge in biting bug population (mosquitoes) because of all the rain. Saw lots of butterflies, including a Monarch on cosmos, Eastern black swallowtail, and a yellow swallowtail-looking butterfly moving too quickly for an ID. The shade gardeners did a circumnavigation of the garden and pulled some poison ivy making itself at home in mulch. Be careful when working in areas with weeds! Watering: With the heavy rains we've had, and the forecast of more showers and thunderstorms through Saturday, no watering needed for the next several days. MANNA: Today's delivery to Manna was 104 pounds for a total of 149 pounds this week! Closing comments: Bill and Lily What a great delivery to Manna this week. Please don't forget the Open Garden Tuesday August 29 from 10-12noon. This is the same day that we will be having our tomato tasting. We will be offering tours of the garden as well. Friday September 15, Pam Hosimer will be bringing her class with parents for a tour, lesson in the garden. I hope she can continue to do this. We are also working with The Ridge School in Rockville for a tour of the garden. We will let you know which Tuesday they can come. They will come with questions for us to answer! Hope we can develop an ongoing relationship with this group. Please keep bringing those clam shells. We have used almost all of them up. We need the larger ones so tomatoes can fit in them. Need speakers for our 10 at 10. Let us know if you have something to share. Also looking for anyone interested in leadership positions for the garden. Come talk to either of us. Thanks all! See you all next week!
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