“The Good, the Bad, & the Beautiful of the 2010 Season”

Julee’s Ramblin’ Reflections

“The Good, the Bad, & the Beautiful of the 2010 Season”

The Good – we harvested the most delicata squash ever! We had it available up to our last sale day, December 4. The Bad – we didn’t grow successfully as many potatoes as usual – due to the dry summer. The Beautiful – “Kaylee’s Garden”, our permaculture plot was one of pure enchantment. It was the center of our tours, our education, our experimental varieties, and our meditations.

The Good – our soil is becoming so ‘earth(worm) bound’. You can pick up handful of soil in certain plots and see and feel the worm castings! The Bad – the hot dry summer lowered our lettuce production. The Beautiful – Upper A Garden was a magnificent palette of purple shades. Joey had companion planted purple basil with eggplant, and pink cosmos with peppers. The plot was a magnificent example of interplanting of herbs, flowers, and nightshades.

The Good – our volunteers worked tirelessly this year helping us with large improvement projects. They helped us make four raised beds in the hoophouses and we had the best tomatoes in there in years; they helped us sheet mulch the permaculture plot and week after week spread leaves and hay to enrich our soil. Bill devoted his time to improving the wooden structures on the hoophouses which are now painted, solidly built and look fantastic! The Bad – we still have a tremendous water and erosion problem, coming right from the road, washing out our path, and flooding our hoophouse and field C area. The Beautiful – seeing our wet, heavy soil Field D produce! We are creating cover crop paths between our beds, which certainly paid off this year. Usually Field D is a washout, but produced beautiful cucumbers, eggplant, mustard, Chinese cabbage, beans, and pac choi this year.

The Good – our Food Connection Corps program, was the best yet. The students worked hard, took pride in their work, and learn a lot about organic gardening, which they proved in their last matching game of the year. The Bad – seem to have more than our share of Mexican bean beetles. Ah – just a challenge for next year. The Beautiful – the Rippling Waters Staff. They work tirelessly, have tremendous spirit, enjoy the farm and each other. Thank you so much, Jen, Joey, Livy, Chris, Mary, Phil, Karla, Karen, and Mike!!!