Yay thunderstorms!

Well, yesterday I managed to cover crop the 1.5 acre future vegetable garden with sorghum. A few hours later, a thunderstorm started that flooded my garage. Bad for my garage, but great for the sorghum. Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sorghum to see what Sorghum is. Remember, the idea behind cover cropping is to prevent erosion, choke out weeds, improve soil texture and structure, and, most importantly, add organic matter.

There's a lot I'd like to accomplish here over the summer. I would like help from students - in addition to offering this opportunity for learning and doing 'the good work,' you can get volunteer hours and take home produce or plants as a bit of reward. So here's a quick list of goals so you can get an idea of what summer activities will be going on:

1. Clear, till, and cover crop more area around the 1.5 acre field and the nursery. (tractor driving!)
2. Find a way to use the 2" pipe near that field to irrigate cover crops when necessary.
3. Plant some things I didn't have time to plant before school ended (Jerusalem Thorn, Kumquats, some gingers / tropicals, alphonse karr bamboo...)
4. Harvest bell peppers, eggplant, cucumber, corn, and squash as they are ready.
5. Plant veggie crops that will be ready to harvest when school starts - that way we can continue local food Fridays the first week of school.
6. Plant seeds and propagate plants so we'll have a good stock to work with as soon as school starts in August.