OUR NEW GREENHOUSE

The arrival of our new greenhouse on Friday was very exciting! It came on a flat bed truck and only took two guys to move it onto the prepared gravel base. John did a great job preparing the gravel base with a little advise and direction from Dave.







The greenhouse also came with wood staging and a nice tray which is used for putting compost in for potting up seeds and small plants. What a difference this will make to our ability to prolong the growing season and to getting a head start in the spring. We will be planning some group greenhouse training, especially on how to start seeds early in the spring then potting them on into larger pots when big enough before planting out after the frosts have stopped.



Our Saturday workday was a very busy one with lots of strong guys who helped move the weighing counter into its new position then the deer fencing was replaced and more gravel raked around the sink and entrance areas. What a big difference lots of helping hands make to the garden. Thank you to everyone who helped today!! Our community garden is looking good and producing a lot. Over 2,000 lbs. of produce has been harvested for The Salvation Army Food Pantry so far this year. It's a good thing we have had an abundance of produce this year as the number of people needing to use the food pantry has increased a lot too.


The children had some fun in the garden today too as we moved the weighing counter two resident frogs hopped out and the kids chased them until they caught them in their bug box. Yes, I will confess that I caught one of the little froggies for the kids to inspect, but I also made them promise to release them back into the garden when they finished with them, which they did. Miranda loves playing with the garden wildlife but she is also very good about freeing them after a little while so they don't get too stressed out. A cute salamander slithered out from under the counter too and the kids tried to catch him but he wasn't having that so he was last seen burrowing into the ground to hide from them.

Speaking of wildlife it might be a good time to point out that Woody (aka Snowflake) the resident cat thought the greenhouse was a new home for him. However, he was promptly escorted out of the greenhouse and told he was never to set paw in it again. The reason the cat is not welcome in the greenhouse is that he would no doubt find it to be a useful toilet stop in all that gravel and we sure do not want to experience that. So please KEEP THE CAT out of the greenhouse. He needs to be reminded from time to time that his function in the garden is a mouser and that requires him to stay outside keeping a watchful eye at all times.


The sweetpeas having died back enough were pulled up today and composted. A couple of areas were also prepared for planting garlic next Tuesday. Also on Tuesday we shall pot on some self set little tomato plants and dill which we will over winter in the greenhouse. The dill should last all winter but the tomato plants will die off around December or January depending on how cold the winter gets. Speaking of weather -- it sure has suddenly cooled down this week which is a sure sign of fall arriving. Although it is sad to see the end of such a wonderful summer I think we can all look back with pride on the tremendous progress we have made in the garden. To help us in this reflection I plan to have a couple of posters filled with photos taken throughout the year to share with all the gardeners at our Harvest Supper pot luck. We've invited some special guests to the potluck and it should be a very enjoyable evening. I hope to see everyone there.

cheers,
Bev

Harvesting Time

I hope everyone is loving this hot weather we've been having. The garden was blazing yesterday. I don't often come when the Salvation Army is open so I decided to check and see if there was anything needing harvesting. I went to the food bank shelves to see what was there
and saw that we had plenty of tomatoes and giant scallop squash and some lemon cucumbers.

Next I checked to see what was ready for picking. Mostly I found a good quantity of green zucchinis ready and green cucumbers. So I picked and weighed them and then set them in the boxes, trying to arrange them nicely.

There were some yellow squashes that were fairly bruised up but not really "bad" yet so I wasn't sure if I should yank them. I left them for now. I did remove some very questionable semi-shriveled tomatoes.

After finishing up with the food pantry harvesting I decided to see what was ripe in my own row. My beans have been enjoying this warm dry weather and I was able to harvest a large quantity of them. I love growing dry storage beans because I get to shell them. Some people find this part of harvesting tedious, but not me. I find it soothing to crack open those dried pods and nudge out the beautiful beans that look like painted pottery. I now have a large bowl of dry beans that I grew myself. So far I think I've grown enough to make six pots of bean and vegetable soup.

I still have some tomatoes to harvest but I wasn't ready for them yesterday. I've been canning tomatoes and tomatillo salsa. If I have enough I may can some of the tomatoes from my row: diced tomatoes come in handy during the winter for casseroles and soups.

Can you believe it's already getting close to the time to plant shallots and garlic? In my home garden I'm going to plant favas in a week or two for an early spring harvest.

Oh! One last thing- I noticed that the leeks are getting quite fat- when do we harvest those? I didn't want to touch them without asking first but they are looking ready to me.

Enjoy the sunshine everyone!

Saturday September 6th

I had to share these pictures of our tomatoes. These are just a few of what we picked being weighted. They are beautiful this year.



Angela picked this odd tomato in the Food Pantry Rows. There were a couple that look like this.


Today we tried to corral the kiddos into a activity with out much success. They were too busy having fun to get them together. We decided to dig the potatoes but most of them were rotten. The row evidently gets too much water for potatoes. The ones on the top of the soil under the straw were fine but if they were in the soil they rotted. The kids of course were totally unexcited about rotten potatoes. Oh well, maybe next year. I received a few ideas on how to hill up the rows so they aren't so wet.

Sunflowers in the Sunflower House. The little yellow finches are loving all the free seeds.

Bean Tunnel progress - Yes this is the bean tunnel. I know you can't really see the beans anymore. The birdhouse gourds have taken over. It is so pretty. Now all we need to do is to wait until the stems shrivel up. Then they will be ready to be cut the gourds from the vines. After that they need to be cured for several months. Then the gourds will be ready to make into fun projects. It looks like we will have a lot to dry for a project next spring.

Shelling Beans

This dry shelling bean is called "Jacob's Cattle" and is an heirloom variety. It almost doesn't look real to me, prettier than money, and good for the soup pot!

The beans were so pretty I had to show them to Angela, Janet, and their girls.

It's strangely satisfying to crack open the dried pods and let the hard shiny beans fall into the bowl, everyone helped because it was so much fun.

I finally managed to get my butt down to the community garden on a work day. I came around 11:15am looking to put in some work for the last two hours of the scheduled group gathering. As it turns out, nearly everyone was packing up to leave. Harvesting had been done, weeding had been done. When I asked if there was anything particular anyone wanted done no one thought so. Looking around I have to say that the garden is pretty shiny this week! Janet and Angela were busy organizing a children's garden activity so I stuck my nose in my own row to see if any more beans were ready to shell.

I gathered another half pound of them and we shelled them sitting in partial shade, chatting as we worked. Can you imagine a time when you would have had to grow all your own storage beans? How much space would a family need to grow enough beans to get them through a year? (I hope to be able to answer that question once I'm done harvesting.) I am constantly struck by how much people take food for granted. I think it's safe to say that food gardeners, such as ourselves, are one of the few modern group of people who don't do this. When you have to nurture a bell pepper for two months to taste it's sweet peppery juice you know that food doesn't fall from the grocery store heaven.

What I am always wondering about is how people discovered that you could dry beans in the first place and then reconstitute them? It must have been hunger that drove someone to find a way to eat the hard shiny dried beans left in the pods after the summer slid by and autumn crept up. Did they try to eat them without cooking them first? How far back have people known about storing and using dried beans. These are questions that anthropology should be able to answer which is why I've always thought that would be a great career.

I hope you all had a great weekend and are enjoying this warm weather.

Saturday August 30




The garden was full of activity. I came by a little late about 11:00 or so. Helen was there with her daughter and she and Miranda quickly went off to play. I tried to get them to help with the harvest but a frog and a butterfly distracted them and off they went to find a way to make a fairy house. Even the frightening bumble bees didn't keep them from the sunflower house. It is so over grown now that only kids are comfortable climbing through the foliage to get to the center of the house. They seem to have a lot of fun in there. Giggles and excitement admit from it's core. I'm sure its a great place of inspiration for fairy houses.


The white pumpkin continues to grow. Jack has informed me that it is in fact a squash. I'm still not sure. It certainly looks like a pumpkin. What do you think?

We have the old compost pile moved and the ground is cleared to make way for the new greenhouse which is scheduled to arrive mid September. Jack, John, Dean and Angela did an amazing amount of dirt hauling and sifting to accomplish this bare bit of ground. Thanks for keeping at it Jack and John.



Look our friends the frogs are making a come back. I haven't seen them most for most of the hottest part of the summer. Now that we have had a few rains they're back.