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.)

September Update

The garden has made some significant changes as fall has set in.  We are still picking some veggies from the garden, but the amount we have been picking has decreased a lot over the past few weeks.  I picked the last cucumber on Saturday- the cantaloupe, onions, and watermelon are all gone as well.  The beans, jalapeno peppers, green peppers, cherry tomatoes, and regular tomatoes are all still doing quite well- there's still quite a bit that we'll be able to pick.  There are a few acorn and zucchini squash left.  Some of the Our Savior Preschoolers picked a few gourds and pumpkins to bring fall into their classroom.  Many of the pumpkins and gourds are still growing and ripening on the vines.

Below are some pictures from this week:

Overview of the garden- still looks pretty green

cucumber section- not much left

Beans are still doing quite well

the LAST cucumber

gourd

this gourd is BIG

Jalapeno peppers are still doing well

Cantaloupe vines are almost all dead

Tomatoes are still turning red

few peppers left

the broccoli plants got pulled up

The pumpkin patch!

That is a nice looking pumpkin!!!

a few zucchini squash are still growing

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