May 2010
www.bountea.com  
In This Issue
May Garden Tasks
Lovely Lettuce
Quick Links
 Dear Reader,

This newsletter is a little late; it had to take a back seat to our Bountea Visioning Retreat.  Every six months or so, we get together over multiple days to review every aspect of the business –Roland in the garden from our most idealistic hopes to the detailed nitty-gritty of fulfilling orders.  Growing a business is like creating a garden: a balance of what we envision tempered by what is realistic.  In our meetings we come up with great ideas, review our successes and failures and gather energy to forge ahead toward the next challenge.   It is exhausting and invigorating!One of our exciting new ventures is the development of an educational outreach to schools, BounTeach.  Young people connect with the Earth through contact with the soil: We have been working on the garden for a short amount of time, but we have already seen improvements. We have learned a lot about gardening and such, and your supplies made it so much more possible to have a great garden in our school.Sincerely
Katie Matthews, Arena student 

 

You may have found your way via the Bountea Blog to John’s new BioTea website.  It is a work in progress with some of the strangeness of a different culture (bathing in the compost tea!) and great pictures of BioTea biological activity. BioTea is a version of Bountea adapted to local Philippine conditions.

This month I decided to share my passion for lettuce.  The article gives an overview of how to grow this wonderful vegetable – the epitome of summer.

 

Best Regards,

Roland Evans
Organic Bountea


May Garden Tasks
(May 15th — June 15th)Seeds Indoors: keep sowing salad greens and hold back transplanting hot weather
plants until all danger of frost is passed.

Seeds Outdoors: (only when regular
temperatures reach 55 degrees) – beans, corn, cucumber, gourds,
melons, pumpkins, squash, sunflower.
Place
row cover over cucumber, melons, squash, pumpkins to defeat the
cucumber beetle.  Remove when flowers appear so insects can pollinate. 

Transplants Outdoors: broccoli,
Brussels sprouts, cabbage, celery.  Use walls of water or four-gallon
water jugs around transplanted tomatoes and peppers if there is a chance
of frost.  Begin hardening off tender plants like basil.  

Ornamentals: place compost around
roses, trees and shrubs.After all frosts
Transplants
outdoors: tomato, cucumber,
eggplant, melons, gourds, peppers, pumpkins, winter squash, summer
squash.   Make tomato collars to repel cutworms (tuna can or
cardboard collar placed around tomato plant and pushed into the ground
to the depth of one inch)   

Ornamentals:
plant tender annualsTree
Planting Tips:  Dig a WIDE hole.  Loosen soil at the bottom and
add 2 tablespoons of SuperStart for
Plants.
Do not add compost.  Carefully disentangle roots and lower tree into
the hole with roots spread out to the side.  Make sure the graft joint
is above the soil level.  If you do not have Bountea on hand, add 2
teaspoons of Root Web to 2
gallons of water.  Soak all the roots and the soil around the tree.  Mix
1 cup of Humisoil with your garden soil and planting mix and carefully
fill around the roots.  Water with Bountea
as you fill until the soil is level.  Spread compost or other mulch
around the tree.

_______________________________________

Bountea Compost
Tea:  If this is your third application of
the Bountea, add the M3 about 2
hours before the end of the brewing cycle.  Dilute 10 – 1 and apply
to the leaves of all your seedlings as well as the soil.

________________________________________

 

Lovely Lettuce

General Info: Lettuce is a cool loving, fast growing,
leafy annual that does not like high heat or direct summer sun.  It tastes best when grown quickly in
moist, fertile, mineral-rich soil.
Seeds:  Small, black and white, shaped like arrowheads.  Seeds
store for 3 years and germinate in 6 -12 days.

Varieties: Hundreds of varieties that fall generally into
the following categories:

  • Loose-leaf – good for multiple harvests of leaves and in mesclun
    mixes
  • Romaine/cos – heat-tolerant long firm heads
  • Summer Crisp/Batavian – looser crispy heads
  • Crisphead – tight iceberg type heads – needs long growing
    season
  • Butterhead – soft loose heads – more tender

Create your own mixtures.  Choose hardy winter varieties to sow in the fall.

Indoor Sowing: Sow indoors in planting mix, 2 seeds per
container during late winter and early spring.  Harden off and transplant when seedlings are 2″ tall at 2″-3″ spacing in rows or blocks. Keep some seedlings handy during the summer to interplant wherever there
is shaded space.

Outdoor
Sowing: Direct seed small amounts in the garden or greenhouse
from spring onwards every 2-3 weeks until late September.  Sow seeds
about 1″ apart in 8″-12″ rows or thinly (1 seed
per square inch) all over a 2-foot square block… read more 


Forward this article to a friend

_________________________________________________
Thanks,
We really appreciate your business and the loving effort you spend on your soil and plants.  Help us help you better by giving is feedback on our service, products and communications.

Email us now while it’s on your mind!


Care for your Plants — Care for your Soil — Care for our Earth
the Bountea way.

 

Organic Bountea
info@bountea.com  800-798-0765