I started foliar feeding this week. The lettuces, who don't mind the cold, responded imediately. The tomatoes are still unimpressed. (Of the nine we have started, I am only sure that three will make it, but I haven't given up on any of them yet.) Rod and I were talking about the difference between the produce of '07 and last year's. The difference in quality was unmistakable -- that first year, produce seemed to last forever and it tasted amazing. Last year, it was good, but not amazing and it didn't last particularly long. The big difference was that I was too sick to do the foliar feeding last year. I wonder whether this year will see a return to amazing.
Not eating grains has caused both my hearing and my sense of smell to return. I have to say, I now understand why my boys made such faces whenever I foliar fed the garden the previous year. My goodness, that smells bad! I'm thinking that, given their faces when I was playing with cow poop soup, that is probably as bad as worse. I won't know until the days are hot enough to "cook" the soup...something to look forward to. *grin*
Off to the garden, so I'll have time to get to the nursery to get Grandpa John's garden later. That goes in after we go to the dojo tomorrow.
Congrats on the returning senses -- that must be amazing!
ReplyDeleteI tried growing rhubarb recently, but I realized that it's really hard to find any recipes for it that don't use sugar, plus the plants were stunningly huge and were overrunning my garden, so I ended up giving it away. If you do want rhubarb and you don't have a good source of it, let me know and I can ask the person who I got the rhubarb from and the person who I gave mine to, and one of them is likely to have some to spare, though possibly not 'til next year. But honestly, while my rhubarb grew well, overall I was disappointed.
I am curious what you used in the foliar feedings in your garden in the year the produce was amazing.
Hi, Valerie! Yeah, the returning senses are pretty cool -- for one thing I can be more confident about getting the house clean now that I can smell again. Funny how we don't even think about ow we depend on the nose for that!
ReplyDeleteI know that rhubarb is pretty big, but we have a pretty big garden so I think I can find a place where it won't be in the way. I doubt we'll eat if often -- once a year maybe -- because, as you say, almost all recipes call for sugar. We cook it with apples, strawberries, and a bit of honey and then eat it over canned peaches or coconut ice cream occasionally. Mostly, though, I just think it's beautiful.
For foliar feeding, I used Neptune's foliar emulsions (kelp or fish - available at DTH&G) This year I'm using a different brand (Peaceful valley).