Usually, foliar-feeding the garden which Jill and I raise is a “last priority.” If something’s left over in the Hagie sprayer from a field trial I’m doing, I swing out a boom and spray the garden crops. That always generated a lot more butternut squash and other produce than we could eat.
This season, Erik and Jeanene’s son Blake used a hand-pump sprayer containing WakeUP Summer and a soluble 20-20-20 fertilizer with trace elements to foliar-feed his own melon patch.
Blake and his twin brother Terry also raise their own sweet corn and have developed a waiting list for their sweet, delicious corn every summer. (The raccoons recognize it too, they gather from miles around and pose a challenge.) Brix readings are usually upwards of 25 or 28, with a hazy line on the refractometer scale which indicates a wide variety of minerals.
Jeanene is the main gardener in our three-generation family on this farm. She has an extensive, fenced garden where she, Erik and the boys raise fruit, veggies and flowers with WakeUP. With almost eight years of experience, she has refined “the touch” with WakeUP on flowers and potted green plants like citrus in her garden — and the family’s sunroom, too.
Today, Labor Day 2016, Blake began harvesting some of his melons — one of which weighed 40 pounds, 15 ounces on the electronic scale. Blake took it with him back to Marshalltown Community College where he’s studying Sustainable Agriculture and on the college basketball team.
Here’s the 40-pounder:
By Jerry Carlson (Grandpa) Published September 5, 2016