EECO Farm – JUNE 2024 Newsletter for Gardeners | |
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“Consider well the proportion of things.
It is better to be a young June-bug,
than an old bird of paradise!
“Puddi’nhead Wilson” – Samuel L. Clemens, a/k/a Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)
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The start of Summer these days always comes on the 171st day of the year (the 172nd in leap years) and so on June 20, 2024, at promptly 4:51pm it will officially arrive once again --- but that wasn’t always so! In fact, diurnal time keeping and marking the start of the four seasons on a calendar in Europe (an entirely human invention) was way off in ancient times when it was first started about 2,750 years ago.
In fact, the annual calendar was so messed up back then that there were usually only about 355 days in any given “year”. Extra days were actually added into the year whenever a ruler believed they were needed for ceremonies, feasts and the like. Needless to say, this caused the seasons to get severely out of whack with “spring” and “summer” sometimes starting in mid-February and late-May, respectively.
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Yet that pesky leap year continued to push the seasons back by a day every 100 years or so. By 1582, the seasonal start dates were all off again by about two weeks! Thus, Pope Gregory XIII felt he had to intervene and in October of that year he simply removed the 10 days causing the misalignment. He then kept the 29th day of February every four years and added back in an extra day at the turn of every century that wasn’t already a leap year. We now live under the Gregorian Calendar instead of the Julian.
The very start of summer and its generous warm sun allows anyone to play catch-up in their gardens by buying larger greenhouse transplants from any one of the many and varied nurseries scattered around the East End or the North Fork. These potted plants are several weeks old when you buy them so, time-wise, it is the same as if you planted them yourself back in April.
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Finally, when Julius Caesar became dictator of Rome (in 49b.c.) he had had enough and so he decided a mandatory change was called for in order to create a more effective calendar for administering a vast and growing empire. With the help of the astronomer and mathematician Sosigenes of Alexandria, Caesar instituted the eponymous Julian calendar on January 1st, 45b.c. However, in order to make the switch over to this new calendar work, all Roman subjects --- no matter where they were located --- had to withstand what is now known as the historic “last year of confusion”. At this point the Roman calendar was roughly 3 months out of whack with the seasonal planting and harvests, so, being a dictator, Ceasar merely inserted three extra months, 90 days, (known as “intercalary months”) into the year! .
He did this mainly to get the 365-day calendar properly realigned with the solar year and he started the new year on January 1st to honor the god Janus. For those living within the borders of Rome’s empire, 46b.c. --- now an astounding 445 days long --- became the longest year in recorded history.
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Beginning an entire garden from seed right now is challenging but also very possible as the soil is certainly warm enough. It just means you will get a later harvest because many of the larger summer plants (eggplant, larger tomatoes, arugula, peppers, zucchini and the like) don’t even set ripe fruit and vegetables for picking until after 110 sunny days have gone by, which puts you well into the mid-September. Planting samples now that are already 4 to 6 weeks old, however, moves your harvesting date closer into early August. | | |
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Of course, radishes, onions, baby carrots, many types of string beans, turnips, most cucumbers and kale all grow fairly fast from seed (often in less than 62 days) and they can easily be picked for your salad by the end of July.
The old standby for even the most inexperienced gardener is to plant lettuce of any type now either in seed or from those little packets of 4 and 6 mini-heads of iceberg, Bibb or Boston, oak leaf, romaine, etc. Once lettuce is about 5 inches out of the ground you may start clipping it for salad. Don’t worry, it will grow back and continue to produce enough for cutting.
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Please remember to remove the pots, cardboard boxes, etc. yourself and either take them home or to the dump as we do not provide this service. Kindly do not leave these items in the tool shed and never toss them into the compost wagon! Only vegetable matter is to be tossed into the weed wagon.
We understand that a few of our tenants have events in their lives that arise and prevent you from working your garden, but we cannot allow such spaces to get overrun with weeds! It is not only unsightly, but many weeds will set seeds quickly and early and then the wind will carry those unwanted seeds to other gardens. So, please, do not let that happen. However, if you find that you cannot handle your garden, kindly don’t wait to year’s end to give it back to us! Do it now and the EECO Farm Board will return half your rent and permit someone else on our long waiting list to gladly take it over. Just let us know.
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SPECIAL NOTE: Please do not use any fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, or any kind of bug or weed killer that is not organically certified. We cannot jeopardize our NYS designation as a certified organic farm! Any tenant gardener using such items will not have their EECO Farm Garden lease renewed.
Happy Gardening!
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IF ANYONE HAS GENTLY USED GARDEN TOOLS THAT THEY WOULD LIKE TO DONATE TO ECCO FARM IT WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED.
ALSO --- WE WOULD GLADLY ACCEPT OUTDOOR TABLES AND CHAIRS.
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