Tomorrow shows a 90% chance of rain. Those showers will make the garden jump in growth. The sweet corn has really grown here lately with about 50% of the crop tasseling and silk is appearing. This is a crucial time for the corn, so I hope the rainy and overcast weather tomorrow doesn't hinder pollination. Poorly pollinated corn results in corn cobs that have missing (or few) kernels on the corn cob. I've seen this a lot. To prevent that, this year I tried to plant a little closer together.
But if I have concerns about pollination, I'm going to try a trick I read about - hand pollination. Apparently, you gently cut the tassel off the top of the plant with scissors so you don't knock pollen off. Then you move the tassel over the corn silk, trying to ensure each strand is dusted with pollen. Reportedly, it is best to do this between 9-11AM after the dew has burned off.
We've been picking and eating lots of fresh vegetables here lately. I harvested a huge bowl of Contender Snap Beans and snapped off the ends and Tricia cooked them. So delicious. We also picked some beets and two varieties of carrots. The orange carrots are Danvers and the yellow ones are a free variety I received from Baker Creek. They are called Uzbek Golden Carrots.
We sliced up the root crops, salted them, put pats of butter on top (we eat a lot of butter!) and roasted them in the oven. Roasted vegetables are so sweet. We ate a plate full and went back for seconds. Gotta be honest, there weren't many leftovers. Not only do the vegetables taste great, but the colors are beautiful.
We're planning on picking some radishes tomorrow and making a spicy radish dip that we'll devour with raw carrots we'll cut up and use in place of crackers. Looking forward to that.
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