Update from Letitia

Sunday we took out the peas, planted lettuce, beets and pickling cucumbers. The cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins and muskmelons have mold, so Vikte did some research and found three non-toxic sprays (vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and borax mixed with water) to combat the mold. We tested all three.

There are lots of seedlings in the garden, so be careful when weeding. If there is any doubt if it's a weed or a seedling, let's leave it in the ground.

We need signs for the beet and lettuce seedlings that were planted Sunday.

Garden Captain
Or boss or whatever you want to call it. Betsy suggested that we take turns leading in the garden each week. The person who is responsible for each week needs to make a to-do list prior to when we start Sunday morning and then bring the list to the garden on Sunday. The August schedule is as follows.
Ausust 2: Mark Domin
August 9: Meg
August 16: Suzanne
August 23: Vikte

Watering
We have had more cool temps and more cloudy days this summer than usual. We discussed the mold on Sunday and decided that a likely suspect is excess moisture comibined with lack of sun/heat. We also discussed watering and came up with some suggestions.
Seedlings need to be watered every day, unless it rains enough to water them.
Established plants may not need to be watered every day when we have cooler temps and clouds.
Established plants, when the weather is cooler, do better with a deep watering every couple of days than with shallow waterings daily.
Some notes on what was watered when may help waterers. Suzanne & Diana provided a waterproof container, notebook and pens. Waterers can write down what they watered to help subsequent waterers decide if the established plants should be watered.
Don't be shy - stick your finger into the soil to check the moisture if you are not sure if plants need more water.
The garden should be watered as early in the day as possible, particularily given the recent weather. That being said, everyone understands that waterers may not be able to get to the garden until late in the day.
We will also list when we planted seeds and where in the notebook so that waterers know where seedlings are (might help with accidental weeding of seedlings also).

Mold Spray
Here is a list of which plants received which remedy for mold so that we can watch to see what works. (Vikte - if I am wrong about any of these, please update.)
Right half of zucchinis (as you are facing Vikte's house) were sprayed with peroxide.
Left half of zucchinis were sprayed with vinegar.
Pumpkins and cukes were sprayed with borax & water mix (1 cup Borax to 1 gallon of water).
Melons with the peas and the new cucumbers were sprayed with vinegar.

Raspberries
We discussed planting raspberries on the hill and determined the following. Vikte said that she will be raspberry captain.
We would like to plant 3 horizontal rows of raspberries on the hill (from the top down to the Mack side).
The first step is to till the hill.
We should not need to buy any raspberry plants. We can transplant from Vikte's yard.
We need to decide if we will amend the soil. Raspberries grow in several yards on the block and a couple of people mentioned that they seem to do well in a variety of soil conditions. We discussed leaving the soil as is and just planting or amending the soil but we did not reach a decision.
Rob, can we use your till for the hill sometime in August?