Nocturne Variety of Blueberries

 Nocturne Blueberry Plants, Saturday, July 31, 2021

We recently purchased Nocturne blueberry plants from Swanson’s Nursery in Seattle. Nocturne is a new release from the USDA with large dark fruit on 5-6 ft tall plants. It is a cold hardy and late variety, highly nutritious, and we find the berries especially delicious! We will grow these plants over the winter and will sell them at our spring plant sale. We will also be propagating starts and plan to have an increasing number of small plants for sale in the future. Above are photos of our new Nocturne plants and our propagation area under the grape arbor. 

Note on Tomato Tasting - We decided to have our annual tomato variety tasting event this year on Saturday, September 11. Check our Facebook page or this blog for more details as we get closer to the event.

 Pollinators in the Garden, Saturday, July 24, 2021

Gallucci Learning Garden is being very productive this summer. We have summer squash, cucumbers, onions, rhubarb and blueberries. There are a few tomatoes, but they are coming on slowly. We believe the success is due to improving our soil, and also to making the garden a welcome place for pollinators, especially bees.

We have homes for Mason and Leafcutter bees, and there is an abundance of bumble bees. These pollinators are crucial to the production of both cucumbers and squash. We planted a variety of flowers to purposefully attract and keep the bees. One thing we are trying this year is to let some of our broccoli flower because we see it covered with bees. We also let our spring collard greens flower to collect seed. There are sunflowers and other annual and perennial varieties of flowers. We also have a large bird bath with a solar sprayer that attracts a wide range of birds, bees and insects.

WE ARE BACK FOR SUMMER 2021!!

 Saturday, July 10

Gallucci Learning Garden is back with a full set of volunteers. Our garden is doing very well this season. Today we harvested beets, cabbage, cauliflower, onions, basil, squash, cucumbers, and blueberries. 

Volunteers are experimenting with some new techniques. One of these is spraying fruit trees with a kaolin clay mixture “after petal fall to repel many types of pests and protect trees from sunburn and high temperatures.” See the Philadelphia Orchard Project website, www.phillyorchards.org. Below are photos of our young Liberty apple and the product we are using.

Another experiment is growing our cucumbers up both sides of a trellis from raised beds, and we are trimming the bottom leaves and vines so there is better air circulation and the blossoms are more accessible to the pollinators. We hope to increase our harvest and prevent the mildew that shortens our season.