Peas and Zucchini and Vines

The bean plants are having a fantastic time climbing up the trellis.  Numerous plants have already made it to the top!

There are quite a few snow peas that are near ready to be picked.

The zucchini are getting big and almost ready to be picked!

The carrot tops are getting big!

 Tomato plants are doing quite well...no tomatoes yet though:

Some of the pepper plants aren't doing so great.  A couple plants are doing well:



The viney plants are growing and their tendency to want to take over is quite evident.

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The poor tomato plant in the center left is looking like it might get engulfed in the zucchini plants



Despite the lack of rain...

We have had very little rain in the past month, but thanks to a dedicated watering crew and abundant sunshine, the community garden is flourishing (but it would be even better if it had a nice rain, so pray for rain!). 

We have harvested broccoli and swiss chard and brought them over to the food pantry.  The broccoli will be done soon but the swiss chard will keep growing.

Here's a few other exciting updates:

We constructed a trellis for the bean plants to grow up.  The bean plants are already loving being able to send vines up the trellis.

The pea plants are about 2 feet tall now and have pretty white flowers on them:

Here's a flower on a cantaloupe plant (the fruit will grow where the flowers are):

And the prize for the most ginormous leaf goes to:

The cucumber plants are growing up their fence:

The swiss chard is growing well and colorful and even grows back more when we cut some away.

Right in the middle there you can see a zucchini starting to grow! (it's horizontal and has light and dark green stripes):

First visible veggie!!!

Every time I go out into the garden there are new and exciting developments!!!  Below are some pictures of the latest developments...  

We have had an excellent crew of people who have helped with weeding (a never ending task in an organic garden) and with watering.  Thanks to everyone!!!

The most exciting thing today was the broccoli!!!  Last year we had beautiful broccoli plants grow, but they never formed any heads of broccoli (we think we planted them too late last year).  But this year, one head is already starting to form!!!

Broccoli head starting to form!

The pea plants are growing taller and are looking for something to climb on

The pumpkin vines are getting pretty sizable

the swiss chard is looking gorgeous

the colorful swiss chard!

Zucchini vines

Flowers on the potato plants

Seedlings: they grow up so fast

Everything is planted in the garden and seeds are quickly turning into seedlings and seedlings are quickly turning into plants!  I just love it when I go out to the garden one day and see little sprouts that weren't there the day before.

 Last weekend the youth and adults who were participating in the 30 Hour Famine helped plant the rest of the seeds and the plants in the garden.

Cucumber seeds going in 

lots and lots of tomato plants going in

Here's some highlights on how things are looking:

row of pea plants

baby cucumber plant!

Swiss Chard- this is going to be a cool plant!

Broccoli plants- already getting pretty big

potatoes on the left, onions on the right

tomato plant

2012 Growing Season!!!

The Our Savior community garden is off to a great start!!! We are excited for what year two in the garden will bring!

The whole garden as of today.

Over the winter we evaluated what went well in the garden last year and what can go better this year.  We figured out how to properly rotate the crops and decided to try some new veggies this year.  The new veggies include potatoes, swiss chard, carrots, beets, radishes, and snow peas.

There were a couple of weeks early this spring when we had a dandelion garden!  Thanks to some amazing volunteers we took care of that problem and we also rototilled the whole garden.

We have already planted some of the early crops:

The preschoolers planted rows of beets and radishes.  They were so excited to go out and help in the garden!  They did their best to get the seeds all in a row and space them out evenly, but based on where things are growing, they didn't quite get the seeds lined up exactly right (but it's all good!).

The other early crops were: onions, potatoes, carrots, broccoli and swiss chard.

Here's the broccoli:

The potatoes and onions are GROWING!

Potatoes



Onions


This past Saturday we planted pumpkins, cantaloupe, zucchini, peas, beans, and acorn squash.

The next (and last) planting day is this Saturday, May 19.  We'll be working in the garden from 9:00-11:00- please join us for all or part of this time!  No gardening experience is needed- just bring some work gloves or garden tools if you have them.

Garden Clean Up

The community garden is all cleaned up for the winter.  Except for some lonely chives, there is nothing left in the garden- it looks pretty sad.


We had some wonderful volunteers who came on a Saturday morning to help get everything all cleaned up!  Special thanks go out to all the hard-working church members, boy scouts, and others who joined us.   


First we picked all the last veggies from the garden.  There were lots and lots of big and little gourds, pumpkins, bell peppers, lots of jalapeno peppers, a few zucchini, and green and purple beans.

Then we pulled up all the plants, took out the tomato cages, and tried to pull up as many of the weeds as we could.  Many weeds and some of the plants had grown up the fence, so we had to untangle them from the fence.  Finding the gourds and pumpkins among all the vines was a little like an Easter egg hunt.  We also gathered up all the water hoses and put them away for winter storage.

Getting the weeds out from around the fence

Picking up all the stray tomatoes

 And then the garden got rototilled.

If you look at the far end of the garden on the left side you can see the huge mound of vines and plants that we took out of the garden.  The pile was close to 6 feet tall and probably 6 feet across at the base!  This will all be composted.


We are almost finished compiling all the donation amounts and volunteer hours so I will share that information with you soon- I think you'll be very impressed by all that was accomplished in the first year of the community garden!

The Last Harvest and Clean Up

The Community Garden has been a tremendous blessing this year! It is now time for one final harvest and to clean up this year's garden and prepare it for next year.

We need your help!!!

Join us this Saturday, October 22 from 9:00 to 11:00 to pick any remaining vegetables, pull up dead plants, and generally clean up the garden area. After that, from roughly 11 am to 1 pm we will rototil the garden to get it ready for next year.

Please bring some work gloves and if you have them a garden rake (not a leaf rake), a hoe, or other garden tools. Bring some friends too!

If you have a large rototiller that we can use or if you have any questions, please contact Bill at 630-677-3468 or Melissa at 630 981-7910.

See you there!

(The rain date for the event is next Saturday, October 29th.)