This week in the garden of Sunny Point Cafe…
I gotta start with the heat… Holy Moly, it’s been a hot up here in the hills! But, I guess it’s been hot all over the tar heel state this week. It may be hot, but it has been a very productive week in the garden as well. This week we had another appearance from a very new “plant”. Ok, I know that may sound kinda odd, but up until a couple of weeks ago I had never heard of a Elegant Stinkhorn (Mutinus elegans). It’s a fungus that pops up over night and fades with the heat of the day. According to folklore you can watch it as it grows. It is know by it’s orange color, really weird shape, and most of all… it’s very nasty SMELL. We had a few pop up in the front beds at the restaurant a week or so ago, but this week it was a lone Elegant Stinkhorn. And this time… I was ready with my camera. Too bad ya can’t smell it… it’s crazy funky.
Elegant Stinkhorn
In addition to the “fun with fungus”, there was plenty of gardening going on too… Each morning we pick strawberries, herbs, and edible flowers for the restaurant. We’re still harvesting some killer leafy greens like chard, kale, and some broccoli raab. All the greens are still in great shape despite the heat. We’ve also been taking a bunch of bok choy, onions, and leeks. But the gardens star of the week was probably the romaine lettuce. The chefs whipped out a mad special with the romaine and all the feed back I received was all very complementary. The radishes are coming in pretty strong, as well as the other lettuce varieties we have going.
Cosmonaut Tomato
Along with the heat came some serious jump in the pepper, eggplant, and tomato plants. With the tomato plants, we starting staking and trimmed the bottom branches and suckers to encourage air flow and making it harder for disease spores to bounce up onto the bottom leafs. We also staked the pepper plants but not the eggplant. The eggplant plants are still a bit small but have a lot of new growth. The zucchini and squash seeds I sowed a couple of weeks ago have sprouted and the seedlings are growing nicely. We sowed a lot of beans this week. Mostly bush beans but some trellised as well. Bush bean variety like… dragon’s tongue, royal burgundy, and roma.
Melissa Metz hard at work
One thing I enjoy about this garden is that it’s still growing. Being a urban garden, we’ve got to squeeze as much as possible out of a limited space. This is my co-worker, Melissa Metz, reclaiming some space from the aggressive sunchokes (Jerusalem artichoke). As you can see from the picture… the sunchokes didn’t stand a chance! Nice work Melissa!
So… come on by the restaurant and ask your server for some yummy goods from the garden… then take a stroll through the garden! You’ll be glad ya did…
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