 Here is what we were seeing in the teaching gardens @zilkerbotanicalgarden this last Saturday:
🧄 The garlic were starting to send out scapes so we harvest them so the plant expends its energy trying to grow its stem and flower, leaving the bulb small and flavourless. You can do all kinds of recipes with scapes. 🍉We planted melons, okra transplants and purple sweet potato slips that Angel grew at home using the soil method. We planted them in a shady area in a new bed because the soil doesn't have to be super fertilized or established. 🥔 We added more compost on our potatoes to continue to "hill-up" and give more medium for pot and will be ready to harvest in June 🌽 Milpa/Three Sisters update: The tatume squash is really starting to take off and showing no signs of SVB. The pole beans are coming up quick, providing support for the corn structurally and nutritionally by fixing nitrogen in the soil. Visit our website for the Squash Vine Borer Organic Guide. GROW WITH US Join us at Zilker Botanical Garden as we continue to learn organic gardening together in the teaching gardens. We meet Saturday's and Wednesdays from at 9 - 11 am at Zilker Botanical Garden. This fall we made a major change to the garden as we design a 4-square garden! We are also looking for seed and plant donations so let us know if would like to contribute to the garden this way. Please visit our volunteer page on our website and let us know if you can grow with us! Everyone is welcome, No previous gardening experience required.  The garden is looking surreal or so-real with growth? This last Saturday at the teaching gardens @zilkerbotanicalgarden we planted more purple sweet potato slips that Angel @forage.atx grew at home using the soil method. We planted them in a shady area in a new bed because the soil doesn't have to be super fertilized or established. We also direct seeded okra in this area. Next week we will be planting more heat loving varieties including the red noodle beans, purple hull peas and malabar spinach.
🌽 Milpa/Three Sisters update: We are already getting squash fruits and the pole beans are coming up quick. Thanks to the fish emulsion fertilizer and we transplanted squash early so we hope that we get fruits before the Squash Vine Borers start to burrow. Visit our website for the Squash Vine Borer Organic Guide. GROW WITH US Austin Organic Gardeners member day at Zilker Botanical Gardens teaching gardens is every Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 9 to 11 a.m. All level and ages of gardeners are welcome. You can sign up on our website AustinOrganicGardeners.org/volunteer. We are also looking for seed and plant donations so let us know if would like to contribute to the garden this way. Sign up to volunteer in our website.  We just passed the Full Pink Moon, the Sprouting Grass Moon, the Egg Moon, the Fish Moon, the Paschal Moon, Hanuman Jayanti, Bak Poya, and a Supermoon. So many interpretations of the full moon around the world.
We are now going into a waning period of the Moon—from the day after it is full to the day before it is new again. As the moonlight decreases night by night, plants are encouraged to grow roots, tubers, and bulbs. It’s always best to try to plant with the coming rains which are in the forecast. Click on the links to get growing information and best varieties from Texas A&M Extension and other sources. DIRECT SEED TRANSPLANT GROW YOUR OWN SWEET POTATO SLIPS: You can plant sweet potato slips through June so you still have a little time to grow your own slips at home. See our blog post on two ways to do this at home. The method that produced the most slips was the “soil method.” If you haven’t grown your own slips you can buy them at local nurseries such as the Natural Gardener and Tillery Plant Company. You can even plant small organic sweet potatoes directly in the soil. For more ideas on Ornamentals, Perennials, and Herbs, visit the Central Texas Gardener and The Natural Gardener lists online. Download the Texas A&M Extension Planting Chart and Varieties. 🙌 Team Austin Organic Gardeners for helping mulch the veggie garden beds at @zilkerbotanicalgarden with organic sifted compost that was generously donated to Austin Organic Gardeners by @whittleseylandscape! The compost will help our plants retain moisture as the heat sets in and also add nutrients, organic matter to the soil. An important step every season in the garden. We add 2 inches of compost to the soil in the Spring and Fall. Since we got a late start this year we made sure to side dress and keep the compost several inches away from our establishing plants because the compost is still hot. 🔥
🌽 Milpa/Three Sisters update. We are already getting squash fruits and the pole beans are sprouting. Thanks to the fish emulsion fertilizer and we transplanted squash early so we hope that we get fruits before the Squash Vine Borers start to burrow. Visit our website for the Squash Vine Borer Organic Guide. 🌻 Sunflowers and sunchokes (Jerusalem Arctichoke are emerging from the soil.) 🍓 Strawberries and blackberries are full of fruits! GROW WITH US Austin Organic Gardeners member day at Zilker Botanical Gardens teaching gardens is every Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 9 to 11 a.m. All level and ages of gardeners are welcome. You can sign up on our website AustinOrganicGardeners.org/volunteer. We are also looking for seed and plant donations so let us know if would like to contribute to the garden this way. Sign up to volunteer in our website. We are seeing peek poppy blooms at the teaching gardens @zilkerbotanicalgarden . 💕
Here's a list of what we are seeing this week in the garden: 🐛As temperatures increase we are starting to see the winter Brassicas crops send off stress hormones that invite aphids, cabbage worms and stink bugs like harlequin beetles. We picked off many of them, did a foliar spray with Seaweed and Neem. We left some of the aphids for our ladybug friends. We will keep a few of the kale plant as a trap crop and to help feed our beneficial insects. 🐟 We watered all of the plants getting established with fish emulsion. 🌽 In the Milpa / Three Sisters the corn is already around 6 in and height and we planted 3 Kentucky Wonder pole beans at the base to help fix nitrogen and also support the corn. 🧄 We noticed that some of our Dr. Pound garlic was getting quite large so we harvested a few bulbs. This variety of garlic from member Tim Miller is an heirloom variety and definitely puts on some weight. GROW WITH US Join us at Zilker Botanical Garden as we continue to learn organic gardening together in the teaching gardens. We meet Saturday's and Wednesdays from at 9 - 11 am at Zilker Botanical Garden. This fall we made a major change to the garden as we design a 4-square garden! We are also looking for seed and plant donations so let us know if would like to contribute to the garden this way. Everyone is welcome, No previous gardening experience required.  We are about to pass the first quarter and the moon is now waxing gibbous going into a full moon. Now is also a time to seed-in plants that fruit and seed like beans, corn, melons, and squash. You can still transplants tomatoes, eggplants, tomatillos, and peppers. It is still a good time to plant nut and fruit trees including citrus, and berry bushes and grape vines. It’s always best to try to transplant and seed-in with the coming rains. Which is coming up next week.
Many of the varieties of seeds are associated with the three sisters or #milpa agriculture system we learned about last year with our special guest Sam from Oaxaca, Mexico. You can watch it on our YouTube channel. If you haven’t gotten your corn in, this is the last chance to get it in. You can learn more about milpa and also learn about the three sisters square foot garden we are growing at @zilkerbotanical. DIRECT SEED
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May 2024
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