Sophia transplanting some chard

We’ve been doing a huge amount of transplanting in the Ballibay camp garden these days. Deb Taft, one of my farmer friends back  home, told me to use Seaweed fertilizer to prevent transplant shock. One of my fellow camp gardeners asked me why we would want to give plants a fertilizer without any nitrogen. Heck if I knew.

For those of you who are not big on plant fertilizer lingo, both synthetic and natural plant fertilizers have 3 numbers on their label which indicate  the N-P-K ratio. N stands for nitrogen, P stands for phosphorus and K stands for potassium. Think of them as essential vitamins for your plants.

Craig, a camp counselor who divides his time between the garden and the art studios, explained N-P-K in a way that’s easy to remember. Up, down and all around. Nitrogen benefits upward growth and the top part of the plant. But too much of a good thing is never good. You don’t want long leggy plants! Phosphorous promotes good healthy roots which are often just as important as growing upward. Potassium benefits the entire plant.

Thanks to Craig’s mnemonic, I fully understand why a seaweed fertilizer with 0-4-4 NPK would be a good idea for my new transplants. You want their roots to be fully supported as they move into their new home in the garden beds. Once their roots are happy, they can optimally soak up water and nutrients from the soil.

We might even make up a batch of seaweed for our beets and carrots which are moving closer to being served at the dining hall.

Craig, Diana and Boogie movin' some mulch

The more you learn about gardening, the more you come to appreciate mulch. It puts the kabosh on weeds, helps to keep your plant’s roots evenly hydrated, and encourages earthworms, Mother Nature’s rototillers. I haven’t seen many earthworms since I arrived, so I’m hoping that a nice layer of mulch will encourage them.

Here at Camp Ballibay, we’ve got 1000 sq.feet of beds and some wide weedy pathways between the beds that are in need of mulch. This afternoon the garden team, Craig and Diana, along with Julia who works in the kitchen but loves gardening, hopped into the camp’s big pick up truck for an adventure into town to get some mulch.

We were able to find a garden center that loaded “two scoops” of plain cedar mulch into the bed of our pickup. We got it back to camp without losing any along the way. Our real work was getting all of that mulch out of the darn truck!  Fortunately, when we returned to camp, Boogie a camp counselor/blues guitarist from New Orleans, offered to help shovel the mulch out of the truck. It took loads of shoveling, but we got it all out of the truck and into the garden area.

Next step will be getting all that mulch into the garden pathways and around the plants. Don’t know if we’ve got enough for the whole garden, but we certainly have enough to keep us busy for a while.  Will earthworms arrive once the mulch is keeping things cool, moist and weed free? Will we run out of mulch before we run out of garden beds? Stay tuned for the ongoing saga!

Ballibay Garden Beds

The sun is setting on my first day back at Camp Ballibay. Over 45 young people who are musicians, theatrical professionals, artists, chefs and and other highly creative people are here starting their orientation program. Campers and more counselors will arrive on Sunday bringing the total number close to 200. My piece at camp this year is to get the garden up to speed and create some garden and kitchen programing for campers.

I traveled out here in April to plan the garden, get the seeds started and to create a timeline that would ensure some yummy vegetables that would be ready for eating during the 7 weeks of camp. You’ve heard the saying about God laughing when people make plans? I’ve got my fingers crossed that God, Mother Nature and the Garden Divas will support me in my quest.

Ballibay alumni and veteran counselor Erica Pittman kept the seedlings going in my absence. Today, she handed the garden over to me for the summer. 4 beds named John, Paul, George and Ringo, 1000 square feet in all. My to do list is a mile long filled with transplanting, harvesting and trouble shooting some critter damage. If all goes well, the beds will be ready early next week for campers to start harvesting some greens for the dining hall.

Two other projects on my to do list include starting a worm composting project and building a cob pizza oven for the campout area. The ceramics teacher will be helping me with this muddy fun project along with the Farm Arts campers.

I’ll keep you posted with details.