Finally - Planting Begins!

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Wednesday's Superchicks (and Superguys too) planted 200 pepper plants. Tom taught us a technique of using skewer sticks close to the pepper plants to make it more difficult to crawl up the plant. We also planted in double rows so that the pepper plants will shade each other during the hot Memphis summer.

We also weeded.

PAR is beginning to look very, very nice!

Thanks for all the help.

Sharon

Monday, May 5, 2008

Monday's Team did a great job planting about 70 squash plants, mulching them with leaves and grass and did some weeding. we had a great showing of around eight volunteers. Jeff, please pass on to them about the great job and our thanks. A Pat on the back is always welcomed and is a big motivating factor.

Wednesday's Team will be putting in around 100 pepper plants. Donna/Sharon, let your team know to bring trowels, today's team were short on trowels.

Today's team only took about 45 minutes to put in the plants so your team may also end up doing a little weeding and cultivating. I'll be with you but running my cultivator to get ready to plant the eggplant, hopefully Friday. That will clear my deck of PAR plants.

Also, as a continuing thing, ask your teams to bring bags of grass clippings they see if they are able to. We'll be using them for mulch to augment the Compost we'll be getting.

Tom

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

First, I would like to say the Wednesday's Team did a super job weeding the existing planting. I was disheartened the way it looked when I drove up and left with a song in the heart.

Also, John Devin from "Edible Memphis" was there to do a story for the magazine. Before he came there he talked with Susan Sanford at the Food Bank and she raved about PAR. You'll see it in the July issue. (The magazine is free).

Russell Beis helped me put in about 50 tomato stakes. Tomorrow I'll put in what stakes we got left. I'll probably have to get maybe 20 more. We'll end up with 3 rows of tomatoes (about 80 plants total).

By the way, I said the plot was 100 feet deep. Today I measured it and it's closer to 120 feet.

Friday we're planting tomatoes. One roll of BHN 640, one roll of Roma's and one roll of a variety of indeterminates including Goliath, Whoppers, and Beefsteaks. I would like to get the peppers in also but I won't have enough room in my truck for all the plants. So, depending on the condition of the plot if/after it rains, I would like to put in the peppers Saturday.

I also have a bunch of eggplant and yellow squash plants to put in. My deck looks like a nursery! While the Friday's Team is planting, I'll put in the new stakes I need to get. I figure that should fill up the two hours.

Thanks to all!

Tom

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Hey there, this is Jeff Golladay, Monday's team leader. We did a great job last Monday and Janet, Terry and Martha, I hope, had as much fun as I did, meeting each other.

Apparently we 4 were the only team to get anything done due to wetness and storms. No warm crops have been planted yet again but Tom got #361 ready by fine tilling.

So far we have romaine, cabbage, broccoli, potatoes and onions in the ground. The warm seedlings Tom is growing are 18 inches now and threatening to take his truck hostage..I live 5 minutes from the Garden and it is raining at my house this Sunday morning but perhaps we could get a drying sun this afternoon. So, I need to consult with Tom after I check them and see if Monday pans out or if it is a bust.

Just to be clear.......if it is raining this afternoon then have go breakfast with a friend on Monday. I had planned and wanted us to be planting everything tomorrow.

The Tomato stakes are not in the ground sooooo... I had wanted to, in desperation, plant the stuff anyway and worry about the stakes later. I AM HOPING HE CAN HOOK UP WITH ME AND GET ME THE PLANTS SO WE CAN GET THIS DONE and just slog thru the muck, but nature may have other ideas and I will have to let you know later today after I check the fields, if that is alright with you all. If the roads are not passable for my red beast then it is pointless to "weed" in the mud. Send me your thoughts .

Jeff

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Well, needless to say, Monday is drowned out as well as Tues. Wed. and perhaps Thursday. We have had an inch of rain in the past 2 hours within sight of the Agricenter radar tower. Carl was right about sowing rice. Dial over to Stuttgart and order some.Perhaps we can adapt snow shoes into mud shoes to maneuver out there without sinking and simply scoop mud to make a hole. Another thought might to order some of those Everglades swamp buggies. Will touch base as soon as the weather changes for the better.

Jeff

Thursday, April 24, 2008

I know you heard this story before, about rain and working at PAR, but yet it happened again. Don determined it's too wet to get into the freshly tilled plot to plant tomato stakes and I concur. I'll check it Friday morning to see if we can get in there to put in the stakes Saturday. Unless more rain comes, I going to shot for it. Besides getting into the plot, I have to drive to the back area of the plots to our storage area to get the stakes, cages, etc.

It had to be a wet spring on my first tour of duty at the helm of PAR. Folks, I'm not usually this unorganized.

In Millington, we only got light rain and didn't stop me from getting my garden in at home and everything is doing and looking great. After putting in the tomatoes, peppers and eggplants I should have a bunch left. So before you go out and buy any, especially heirlooms, give me a chance to adopt some out to you. I don't remember if I mentioned it but I have five flats of straight neck squash and eight of your own brand of tomatoes "Bonnie Orginial" from Bonnie with more on the way.

Tom

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

I went out to the plots today and sure enough there was a lot of standing water BUT NOT ON OUR PLOT. I guess because we planted flat and not on hills there wasn't any place for the water to collect. So I decided to go and do a little mulching. Just as I started, around 9:00 AM, Cynthia shows up, she apparently didn't get the word. Cynthia relies on her daughter for emails. So, we got some done.

I'm going to share with you why I am so paranoid. Two Saturdays ago when we had that hard rain, against my wife's arguement, I rode out there to see how bad it was. It was bad. Backing up on the dirt road, I got a little off and went off the road. I got stuck. A Deputy Sheriff on his way home came to my assistance. He got stuck even worse than I did. He had to call AAA to tow us out of there. The next time you go to PAR, notice the ruts to the left of the road. All I can think about is it happening to someone else with PAR and me again with a load of compost.

My only suggestion is if the weather is iffy, make sure the team gets the word to park on the paved road and not on the dirt road.

Paranoid Tom

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

I re-tilled plot 361 this morning, it went pretty quick as tilling goes.

I picked up 6 tomato plants from Bonnie's, there "Bonnie Original". Also five flats of "straight neck yellow squash". They'll provide us more when we need them.

When it rained today, (I got caught in a major rain and hail stones in Raleigh but in Millington it was just a light rain), I called Mulch Works, (they're just a short distance from PAR) to see how much rain they had. Teresa, the owner, said it rained pretty hard there. So I called off the work day for Wednesday as it would probably be mud. I'll drive over there Thursday to see if it's dry enough to put in tomato stakes on Friday and Saturday.

Speaking of tomato stakes, does anyone have a post driver? I have one, Ken Mulholland has one and Al Cook has one or two. We could use more. I put in my stakes today using my new driver I gotz for my birthday. Boy it is so much easier and faster than using a hammer which I did in the past. We have a bunch to put in, between 75 - 100. So we can use additional help if anyone is available.

Tom

Monday, April 21, 2008

John Devin of Edible Memphis Magazine will be doing a story for the magazine about Plant-A-Row. He'll be at PAR on Wednesday, April 30th. He plans to do PAR first, then talk with the Food Bank then finishing up with the kitchens and other recipients that receive the produce. We're really getting exposure considering I'll be with Booker T. taping about PAR on Monday the 28th for his program. Now we have to be sure that PAR lives up to all the hipe.

Today, Monday, Jeff's crew were to fertilize the plants. Tuesday I'll re-till, Wednesday's Team will spread compost, Friday's & Saturday's Team will put in the tomato stakes. Next Monday we start the planting of the summer stuff.