The magic of planting seeds and seeing the first little sprouts emerge is powerful. It is encouraging and an act of hope. It keeps me coming back to the farm through all the challenges of being an organic grower. I hope that you can carve out a little space and time in your life to try planting some seeds, even if it just a container on a deck. It is not too late to plant vegetables or flowers and still enjoy the harvests before the cold weather sets in. Read on for my recommendations of that you can plant now, in late June in Connecticut.
The pale green squash in the image above is a wonderful old heirloom squash, called Benning's Green Tint Squash, which has been recommended for preservation by the Slow Food Ark of Taste organization for its delicious flavor. We have just started harvesting them from the greenhouse. It only take fifty days to reach maturity. Sow some now and you can be enjoying squash in early August. There are other patty pan squash and zucchini squash that mature just as fast that you could plant now in June in Connecticut.
Calendula takes just fifty days to bloom. We planted the calendula above fifty days ago. We also planted some calendula this week that will start blooming in early August, and will bloom until the first frost in October. As you can see in the photo above, bees love calendula. Calendula helps your vegetables grow by attracting bees to pollinate the crops. Harmful insects such as aphids are also attracted to the calendula, and will therefore leave your vegetable crops alone. We love walking through the gardens and admiring the flowers. Flowers bring such beauty and joy into your life, and growing them is such a relaxing and satisfying activity for us. Many of the flowers we grow such as calendula and bachelor buttons have wonderful variation from one flower to the next. It is fun and exciting to see new types of flowers open each day.
We hope you can plant some seeds this week. In addition to calendula and summer squash, we also planted beets, radishes and sunflowers this week. There's still lots of time left in the growing season here in Eastern Connecticut to plant a garden.
If you would like for us to do the growing for you, click here to join our vegetable or flower subscription. We are now booking for the ten week subscription that starts in late August.
Not sure if a vegetable subscription is right for you? Click here to learn about the many benefits, and find out what it is like to be in the program.