Tag: chit seed potatoes

Throughout the month of June

• Lettuce Factory: Sow VERY harvest garlic, harvest potato onions, s, every 6-5 days, under shade-cloth, #15, 16, 17, 18, 19.  Transplant 120/week (1/3 bed) under shadecloth. Transplant #12, 13, 14, 15 this month. Could store seed in fridge.
• Deal with Colorado potato beetles, if necessary, every 7 days with Spinosad (or  Neem.)
• Mulch tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, cukes, asparagus, & watermelons (if not already done).
• Mow buckwheat before flowering, and sorghum-sudan at 3-4’ (cut high) to encourage deep rooting.
• String weave tomatoes once a week, first 3 rounds with thicker baler twine, then thinner binder twine.

  

Early June:

• 1st June: Chit (pre-sprout) seed potatoes for 2 weeks in trays in the light. Let all sprouts grow.
• Harvest garlic and potato onions (see Task List for late May)  
• Sow corn #3, edamame #3, beans #3 (6/7, 24 days after #2). Sow cauliflower 6/1.
• Finish planting watermelons (transplants or sprouted seeds).  Remove rowcover after 3 weeks.
• Transplant leeks, lettuce #12, late tomatoess, (cukes & zukes #2 6/7, if not direct sown). Replace casualties in Roma paste tomatoes, okra & peppers.
• Look for Mexican Bean Beetle on the first cloudy day in June. Order Pediobius foveolatus wasps when larvae seen . Maybe predators too (Lacewings, Nematodes).
• Weed asparagus in this last week of harvest. If possible give more compost. Mulch again. 
• Weed cukes & zukes #2 if direct sown. Clear spring-sown collards, kale, if not done already.

Mid June:

• Seed potatoes: cut into pieces, with approx 2 sprouts per piece.
• Plant & mulch potatoes,  Flag end of each row. 1.3 hours for 2 tractor passes.
• Sow carrots #7, corn #4, drying beans, limas #2. Consider sowing sunflowers in leek beds to flower in late July/early Aug for grasshopper predators (to protect kale).
• Transplant lettuce #13 & 14, zinnias. Clear turnips and kohlrabi.
• Weed and thin to 24” winter squash as soon as they have 3 true leaves.
• Till between rows of winter squash and sweet potatoes, if not using bioplastic mulch.

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  Harvest bulb onions when >50% tops have fallen, (6/11-30), cure indoors for 14 days with fans. Store at 77-95°F or 32-45°F. Take non-storers to walk-in refrigerator after trimming, weighing and recording yield of each variety.

• Stop watering spring potatoes to encourage them to finish up. Bush-hog July 1st at the latest.
• #5 Spring Tractor Work – by mid-June disk the rest of the garden: Corn #6 &7, any odd areas not done earlier. Get mulch for asparagus, Roma paste tomatoes. Bushhog  broccoli, and sorghum-sudan 4’ tall or more (as well as spring-planted potatoes)

Late June:

• Sow drying beans, cucumbers #3 (slicers only), zukes, summer squash #3, 6/23, beans #4, edamame #4 melons #2 by 6/25, cowpeas #3.
• Sow brassicas for fall, (use fall brassicas spreadsheet). 2 or 3 sowings of each variety (each enough alone), a week apart, as insurance.
• Transplant lettuce #15, “filler” leeks to make up for any shortfall in earlier sowings.
• Undersow corn #3, 4 at 2^nd cultivation (when 6-12” tall) with soy, or just till.
• Clear beets. Clear pea stakes if not done earlier
• Get program for Louisa County Ag Fair, (1st w/e of August), to enter produce.
• Sort Potato Onions 6/20-6/30 (without breaking clusters), starting with the biggest, and remove rotting ones. Remove ones >2” for eating, or refrigerate for September planting; or sell to Southern Exposure Seed Exchange before 7/31. Continue to cure small and medium ones for 2 months or more in total, with fans. Use Worksheet and Log Book. Be sure to write down where you store them!
• Store any seeds not needed until fall (okra, nightshades, peanuts, melons) in basement
• Snip, sort and store garlic after curing 2-4 weeks. Store at 60-70°F (basement), never 40-50°F. Seed garlic is best stored in garden shed (or 32-35°F).

Cover crops: can sow buckwheat, millet, soy and sorghum-sudan during June. Japanese millet is good for small equipment. Sorghum-sudangrass is not!

Perennials: Water all.

• Till in oldest strawberry beds after potting up any needed runners.  Bushhog or mow, weed and mulch strawberry beds, mulch paths. Don’t compost until August.
• Mow aisles in grapes and raspberries.
• Weed, compost and tuck mulch round asparagus, (late June/early July).
• Weed and mulch rhubarb.
• New grapevines: remove side branches and fruitlets. Late June/early July:
• Make a visit to the new blueberries and grapes, log progress, tie in, prune if needed. Water, weed, & harvest blueberries & select plants to propagate.
• Blueberry Harvest: 12 person-hours 2 x week from 5/30 to 7/8, then 6 person-hours 2 x week till 7/27. 7 weeks total.

Harvest: Beans, beets, beet greens, blueberries, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, chard, cherries, cucumbers, fava beans in one harvest mid-June, fennel, garlic, kohlrabi, lettuce, onions, peas, hoophouse peppers (green), potato onions, raspberries, scallions, squash, hoophouse tomatoes, turnips, zucchini. Harvest early potatoes from 6/15.

Store for 100 people,1 bag cabbage/week until 9/25 when fall cabbage matures. – say  from 6/25, store 12 bags.  Store ½ bag beets/week until 9/20 when fall beets mature – say 6 bags from 6/20.