Opinionated Planning

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We had a meeting of minds for the outside stuff this week. And there were 3 very emphatic opinions.

1) Too many snapdragons

Last year, half of our snapdragons died from a virus in the soil. So this year we planted twice as many (in a different location). That way if half died, we’d be good.

Half didn’t die. Maybe like 10% did.

So we have a ton more snapdragons than expected. If people scattered snapdragon flowers instead of rose petals, we could have facilitated soooo many romantic encounters. I mean, kudos to the roses’ marketing team for cornering the market on being the flower to rip apart to demonstrate one’s love and adoration. I just think it might be time for that monopoly to end.

2) More lisianthus!

Lisianthus is one of those flowers that is usually very expensive at florists, costing 1.5-2 times more than “cheap” flowers like zinnias (lisianthus retails for $2.50-3 a stem vs $1.50 for zinnias). Which I just don’t get. The lisianthus plants are easy to grow and they produce loads and loads of beautiful long lasting flowers (and they don’t get diseases like powdery mildew like zinnias). We typically just grow the dark purple, medium pink, and white ones, but there was quite the clamoring at the meeting to add green, yellow, and more “bi-color” (purple and white, and pink and white) lisianthus next year.

3) Baby bok choy needs to be in the hydrohouse *insert emphatic hand gestures*

You may remember that we’re updating the hydroponics house – leveling the floor, adding roll up sides, adding bird netting (omg, there were like 30 sparrows stuck in another tunnel this morning. It’s like they were trying to unequivocally prove the necessity of bird netting. No picture or video. You’ll just have to imagine the chaos and my grumblings as I chased the birds up and down the house trying to get them to fly out), etc. Which is all great and needed, but it means that there’s less growing space in there right now. So we’ve got baby bok choy planted in the ground… and boy is the crew mad about the flea beetles attacking. Some pests like aphids and whitefly are ubiquitous across all growing locations. But the flea beetles only strike plants in the ground. And between them and the heat… the baby bok choy is not looking as good as we’re used to. So… incentive to keep truckin’ away at the hydrohouse improvements.

(pictured is the empty hydrohouse with netting and roll up sides installed… on this side. And the objecting-to-the-heat holey baby bok choy)

Seasonal Inspiration

​Mediterranean Eggplant Salad​

​Tomato Grilled Cheese with Fresh Basil​

​Pesto Corn Grilled Peppers​

​Ratatouille​

​Peaches and Berries with Lemon Mint Syrup

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