Veggie by Veggie: Part 2

Cantaloupe: The cantaloupe have done excellent!  There are a ton of them and they are big and look even better than cantaloupes you would buy at the store.  We have picked quite a few and there are still plenty growing on the vines.

Cherry tomatoes:  These tomatoes may be little, but there are literally hundreds of them.  The cherry tomatoes are a bit of a pain to pick because there are so many of them and it's hard to find them sometimes in the jungle of tomato plants.

Green and red bell peppers:  The bell peppers started out great- they looked good, grew quickly, and these were the first plants in the garden to bear fruit.  There have been lots of pepper- especially green peppers- but they haven't done as well as we would have hoped.  The plants are only about half the size of the jalapeno pepper plants.  There are still quite a few peppers growing though.

Tomatoes: Like the cherry tomatoes, the regular tomatoes are doing quite well.  Some of the plants have grown as tall as me (5 1/2 feet tall)!  There are lots and lots of juicy tomatoes.  There are still green ones growing and plenty getting ripe.

Look how tall they are!!!

Squash:  We planted a few different kinds of squash.  We have harvested zucchini, acorn squash, and hubbard squash.  The hubbard squash are huge!  There were lots of zucchini squash, but I haven't seen any more growing (but there may be some in the jungle of vines).  There are still quite a few acorn squash growing.

hubbard squash

acorn squash

Onions: The onions have done very well!  They grew quickly.  We have been picking a few onions once or twice a week.  There are still maybe a dozen or two dozen onions left in the ground.

onions growing in spite of the weeds

Pumpkins:  We had originally planted pie pumpkins, but the seeds unfortunately didn't germinate.  So, we planted some jack-o-lantern pumpkins.  The pumpkin section at the far end of the garden is just filled with vines, but there don't appear to be that many pumpkins- maybe a dozen or so.  A few of the pumpkins are already turning orange!

The pumpkin patch is all the leaves in the very bottom of the photo

Orange pumpkin!

Veggie by Veggie: Part 1

Here's some info and pictures of how each veggie in the community garden is doing.  There's a lot so I'm going to do this in two parts.

Herbs: The herb section of the garden got a little bit out of control.  The weeds grew faster than the plants.  Sometimes there weren't enough people to do the weeding and this part of the garden wasn't the priority.  The dill is dead, the tarragon is huge, the cilantro is hard to pick out amongst the weeds, and the chives are doing pretty well.  As things in the rest of the garden are slowing down a little, we'll have a chance to work on picking some weeds and picking out the herbs.

I spy some cilantro.  Can you pick it out?

It's very hard to tell what's weed and what's herb.

Cucumbers: The cucumbers did very well!  There were lots and lots of cucumbers- bushels full!  There are quite a few left still on the vines, but their growth is slowing down.

This poor cucumber didn't get picked in time.  Sometimes it's hard to find the veggies in all the vines and leaves.

One beautiful cucumber hanging on the fence.

Beans: There are green, purple, and wax beans growing quite well.  We had a little difficulty getting the beans started- the rabbits helped themselves and some of the seeds just didn't grow.  Once we got the fence up and planted some more seeds, the beans have produced well.  I had never seen purple beans growing before so I have enjoyed seeing them grow.  There are still plenty of beans growing on the plants.

Purple beans

Wax beans

Gourds: The gourds would have taken over the whole garden if we had let them!  The vines grew quickly and there are a variety of different gourds growing.  A fence was put up to try to keep the gourd plants confined to the section of the garden they are supposed to be in.  There are some neat looking gourds growing, I have to admit.  They aren't quite ready to be picked yet.

gourd vines going everywhere including along the fence.

Watermelon: We had trouble with getting the watermelon seeds to sprout.  Only a few watermelon vines grew, but I think 3 watermelons grew.  We picked one and are letting the others grow a little more.

Jalapeno peppers:  The jalapeno peppers have done VERY well.  There are dozens and dozens of them. The pickers have to wear gloves when picking them so they don't burn their fingers.  There are still plenty of jalapenos on the plants to be picked.

And here's what's to come in part two of "Veggie by Veggie":

Cantaloupe

Cherry tomatoes

Green and red bell peppers
Tomatoes

Zucchini

Squash

Onions

Pumpkins

Donation update

The community garden is producing so many veggies and some fruits.  We have been donating all the produce to Feeding Northwest Dupage.  We have taken the food to the donation sites at Lutheran Church of the Master in Carol Stream and Resurrection Catholic Community in West Chicago.  The food pantry staff as well as the clients of the food pantries have been very appreciative of the fresh produce.


As of August 24th, we had donated the following amounts of produce:


Red bell peppers: 2
Green bell peppers: 98
Tomatoes: 115
Cherry tomatoes: 10.25 lbs.
Cucumbers: 171
Jalapeno peppers: 244
Beans: 6 lbs.
Cantaloupe: 9
Zucchini: 26
Onions: 36
Squash: 7


These numbers are amazing!  The numbers will be even higher when we add the donations from this week.  Every time I go to help pick veggies, it's almost miraculous to see how much comes out of the garden.  And there's plenty left that still growing in the garden.  

Growing and growing and growing and growing...

The community garden is doing amazing!!!  After being out of the country for 4 weeks it was so nice to come back and see how much the garden had grown in that time!!!  Thanks to all the volunteers who have done their best to keep all the plants watered, fertilized, and otherwise taken care of.  The boy scout troop and the summer camp kids have been helping weekly with the weeding and picking the ripe vegetables.  At least once a week vegetables have been taken to the DuPage Walk in Food Pantry at Lutheran Church of the Master in Carol Stream.

Last week alone we donated:

60 cucumbers

28 bell peppers

4 dozen cherry tomatoes

14 zucchini

36 jalapeno peppers

1 crooked neck squash

The vegetable aren't going to pick themselves though...We could always use a few more hands to help pick veggies each week.  Join us Monday nights at 6:30 or Saturday mornings at 9:00.  Harvesting is by far the best part of gardening (way better than picking weeds, I think)!

Here are some pictures of the amazingness of the garden:

The plants are just growing and growing wherever they can!

this strange looking white thing is a Long Island Cheese Squash

Acorn squash

Forrest of tomato plants

some red cherry tomatoes

Watermelon!!!

Gourds

cucumber fence 

Cucumbers

There are lots and lots of flowers on a lot of the plants which means there will be lots and lots more veggies

I think this is a pumpkin?

Pumpkin?  Squash?

Red Peppers!!!

Cantaloupe plants are taking over

Lots of jalapeno peppers