Originally published in Between the Rows
In MGNV’s demonstration Organic Vegetable Garden (OVG) in June, the mustard and kale plants exploded into bloom, providing food for pollinators and pleasure for the eyes. By the end of the month, their flowers had faded, and we removed them to our long-term compost enclosure to enrich next season’s crops. We will plant more mustard, kale, and other winter brassicas later in the season, after the whiteflies, aphids, and cabbage worms of summer have subsided.
The biggest effort in June was directed at planting small and large fruited tomatoes, sweet and hot peppers, eggplants, and beans of many varieties. We will continue to provide support for these growing crops through harvest.
Our harvest in June included the garlic planted last November and green onions planted this spring. We were dismayed to find that the allium leafminer had made homes for their growing larvae in both these allium crops. Nevertheless, we were able to rescue most of the crops by harvesting before major damage was done to the bulbs. We removed stems and greens containing larvae to the trash, to prevent them from occupying the rest of our crop or our compost.
On the other hand, we were delighted by our harvest of an unexpected bumper crop of spring turnips, apparently encouraged by soil enriched by cover crops, compost, and a generous amount of rain.
Visit the Organic Vegetable Garden!
2845 N. Marcey Road
Arlington, VA 22207 United States
(Park in the lot and walk past the Nature Center to the garden.)
One of the best ways to learn about vegetable gardening is to see long established gardens in action. Make time this year to visit the Organic Vegetable Garden in north Arlington at Potomac Overlook Regional Park, one of the eight demonstration gardens operated by MGNV.