Here are more details on the successful Juniper Street Community Garden in Flagstaff, Arizona started by Jim Mast (Tomato Jim), his daughter and granddaughters. The garden has 12 raised beds built of small diameter pine logs. Each plot is 4 feet x 20 feet.
July 10 – Today I applied Great Big Plants liquid compost to the entire garden per the regular schedule of every other week. We harvested the first onions today – some real beauties!
July 13 – The new radish and lettuce plants are already up. The peas have pods on them now and the zucchini is blooming. We’ll be picking both in a few more days. It’s amazing what the rain does for the garden. Monsoon season is wonderful!
July 20 – Today we harvested the first zucchini, sorrel, and peas. The beans are blooming now as are the pumpkins. It looks like there is a hot week approaching with no rain in the forecast. I also picked the first ripe tomatoes in Clarkdale—some “San Marzano’s.”
July 22 – More ripe tomatoes – this time we picked the first ripe tomatoes at the house in Flagstaff – 4 nice “Stupice’s.”
July 24 – I was very honored today to receive a Centennial Honoree Award from the University of Arizona Cooperative Extension Service during their 100th Anniversary event held at the V-V Ranch at Happy Jack, AZ. It was a fun day and a great honor to receive the award.
July 31 – The garden is looking great. We should have lots of beans before long, as the plants are setting heavily. A “Lemon Boy” tomato is almost ripe. Lots of rain today!!
August 3 – Today I picked the first ripe “Lemon Boy” tomato at the house. We have had 1.5 inches of marvelous rain in the last 3 days. The garden loves it.
August 6 – We harvested the first yellow beans today. There are going to be a ton more, as well as an abundance of green beans soon. The bean plants are some of the healthiest I have ever grown—loaded with blooms and little pods– thanks to the Great Big Plants liquid compost. The weather this week has been warm and dry with no rain—not too hot, so very comfortable. The rain is predicted to return in a few days.
August 11 – Today we picked the first green beans and also did the first harvest of the second planting of radishes and lettuce. Hopefully we may even be able to do a third planting of these. We now have two baby “Jack-be-Little” pumpkins on the vines. Nice rain shower today.
August 14 – We had 2.17 inches of rain in the last three days!! These were the rainiest few days that I can remember in a very long time. The surrounding forest is quite refreshed. We picked lots of beans today. The pea plants looked finished for the season and were getting infected with powdery mildew, so we pulled them up. In their place we planted spinach for a fall crop—both “Teton Hybrid” and “Bloomsdale Long-Standing” varieties.
At the house I picked the first ripe “Japanese Black Trifele” tomato—a real beauty.
Contributed by Jim Mast