Community Garden and Produce Update

      I was at the Calvin Community Garden by about 6:30 this morning. What a delicious time to be in such a lush and beautiful place – and I had it all to myself. Well, except for the birds out for breakfast.

I saw one snatch a flying bug mid air!  Of course there were bazillions of unseen critter crawling or slithering amongst the greenery - slugs, spiders, cucumber beetles, worms and only an entomologist would know what else.
     Speaking of slugs: I mentioned in a previous post that they always fall for (into) beer traps. Some of us, though, noticed the beer was gone but no slugs. A neighboring gardener figured it out when she saw the neighborhood cat slurping it up!

Wall-o'-waters about to go

      It was time to take the wall-'-waters off my eggplants and mulch the potatoes some more. The weather seems to have settled into warm enough nights that they'll do fine. Mine have been "babied" with the water walls (which soak up heat from the sun during the day, maintaining a little greenhouse at night with the warmth).

   But first, I wandered through the garden to admire plant progress and the ingenious contraptions people have erected to support the more exuberant ones, or climbers. I was struck by how many tomato cages are represented: round, square, octagonal, mostly out of wire, but some wooden ones too.

 

       These are great - they can be folded flat at the end of the season for much more efficient storage.  Clever!      
                                                       

These wooden ones look like they've got years of experience!

                              

      I'd never seen octagonal tomato trellises until this morning. They look super sturdy. This gardener will have several wheelbarrows full of tomatoes and peppers before long. Note the basil next to them - oh, the mouthwatering the dishes that will come of the mix!

             

Kathy was successful in growing cukes on this trellis last year.

    A variety of trellises for peas, beans, even cukes and squash dot the plots. Some are homemade from sticks or metal poles, others cut from metal fencing or grating. My neighbor, the Master Gardener with all the gorgeous flowers as well as produce, grew cucumbers up this trellist last year as an experiment. Worked great - the weight of the fruits pulled them downward through the holes for easy picking. She said she thinks the nasturtiums fended off the deer with their strong, peppery flavor and scent. Would love to believe it and will try them with my beans. Stay tuned...


One ambitious couple constructed a beautiful structure of three horizontal pieces of bamboo supported by bamboo posts and strung with strings for tomatoes and I'm-not-sure-what-all-else to climb. It's a work of art, though my photo doesn't do it justice. And bamboo fits so perfectly in a garden.  

Several people have artichokes – those gorgeous plants that remind me of a Broadway musical, such as Auntie Mame, with the star in some fancy dress, belting out show tunes.

We've gotten “reminders” from our beloved garden coordinator, Doug Eldon, to keep paths clear, plots weeded, water OFF when you leave, and no more forests of sunflowers. Hmmm...it's a little late for that, much to the birds' delight (come fall). I'm guilty of blocking a path (unintentionally) with potatoes that are growing out instead of up. Oops; sorry, Doug! 

     I saw some corn plants about an inch from the path. That happens easily since seeds are so tiny, it's hard to imagine how big they'll get. We'll need to elbow through that path soon enough.

      AND we forget how much food one tiny little see can produce! To look at a teeny tomato seed, you'd never think it will give you buckets and buckets of tomatoes before you know it. Same with lettuce and just about anything else you start from seed yourself. The only things that even hint at size might be squash or corn seed. Still, it's hard to imagine the wheelbarrows full of them you'll see in due time.

Speaking of wheelbarrows, my sweet gardener husband harvested one full of favas the other day, then brought them in to pull the bean pods from the stem in 3 large bunches, one after the other. Then came my job: shelling, blanching, freezing and/or cooking the beans. I leave the “jackets” on all but the biggest ones now, but it's still hours of work.




  Plus, it's only June and they're competing for

A bumper crop of strawberries  - some here with the "Berry Spoon"

my time with strawberries and a gazillion other garden tasks. I keep reminding myself how grateful we'll be come winter and can pull some “summer” from the freezer or pantry. In fact, I just gave my sis-in-law a birthday present of a jar of walnut butter from walnuts we gleaned with our neighbors from a huge, old tree a few miles from us last fall. It's the best nut butter ever. Plus a jar of rhubarb-ginger jam. You can't buy those in very many stores – and not homegrown and homemade for sure!