This month gardening at the community garden has definitely had its challenges. Let me share with you what’s happened this month.
September 6 and it has seemed to take forever for the sunflowers to bloom. Looks as though they will soon open and we are looking forward to them blooming. Not only are the seeds edible, but so are the petals and buds.
Our corn is doing well. If the weather holds out, we will enjoy 2 cobs this year! We planted a few seeds, but only one plant grew. Garden fresh corn is the best!
September 10 and the zucchini is doing great!! The weather has been quite hot and beautiful but we have been lucky and had rain, which is great for my slow garden.
Though I am allergic to sunflowers (just the plant and flowers itself, not the seeds or oil), I absolutely love them! They are just so cheery and beautiful! I can hardly wait to watch them open!
Unfortunately, someone decided to raid our garden plot — a downside to having a plot in a garden such as this. The garden is off a walking trail with no fences, so it is easily accessible to everyone in the community. I was surprised to see how much garden stuff was taken from ours as well as other plots. If someone is in need, that is understandable but then I would rather it be eaten than the garden be damaged or vegetables thrown about. There were carrots picked and tossed around in our plot as well as other plots. If they are helping themselves, the least the could have done was pick those pesky weeds! In all seriousness, we had to throw several carrots away as they softened in the hot sun. So discouraging!
This was not the first time this has happened this gardening season and since it seems to be recurring, we decided to clean out the garden and harvest early. The downside of harvesting early is that a lot of the veggies are quite small and would benefit from the extra couple weeks.
We planted a few tomato plants that we grew from seed. We were also gifted a couple tomato plants and planted them here in our plot. We didn’t get many tomatoes but what we did get were simply delicious!
We harvested most of the garden but left the flowers, sunflowers, rhubarb, parsley, dill, beans and corn which we will harvest later as it still needs to grow a bit.
It was an absolutely gorgeous day to harvest the garden!
“I love how summer just wraps its arms around you like a warm blanket.”
– Kellie Elmore
Several of the potato plants that we harvested looked as though the potatoes were punctured with a gardening fork or shovel. We didn’t get very many potatoes considering the amount of plants we had, but we have enough for a few weeks, perhaps a month if we ration them. Fresh garden potatoes though are so tasty!
We had many challenges this gardening season. Not only were carrots picked, but so were the potatoes, beets and corn. The corn was snapped off and the plant was broken so the other cob could no longer grow. And we had the most disgusting worms in the onions and several potato plants as well. I have to admit that I have never seen such creepy crawlies in potatoes before. The plants that we were saving for seed were picked and damaged, so no seed was saved this season. And all the garlic we planted last fall rotted and had to be removed and tossed. Definitely a learning experience this season!
It’s only September 12 but at least some of the sunflowers opened up! The frost got them a little, but not too bad! I think it is neat how sunflowers grow and open up. They are just so beautiful!
September 20 heeded frost warnings so of course, all of the tomatoes we grew at home were harvested instead of being covered at night. We had so many tomatoes which is nice to see! So thankful for the harvest we had!
We went to the garden one evening and the sunflower was simply too pretty to not share! Most of the sunflowers opened by September 24 but there are so many more that will soon blossom. If these were in my backyard, I would leave them grow as long as I possibly could, but sadly, we will have to toss them before the seeds can develop and before all the flowers have had a chance to open. The garden’s rules are plots need to be cleaned before mid-October. I will definitely grow sunflowers next summer.
October update:
We left the sunflowers as long as we could. We are getting a lot of frost now being as it’s October, so we decided to pull them. Unfortunately the sunflowers didn’t have enough time to produce seeds. We will have to plant them much earlier next year!
We also began cleaning out the garden plot. That means removing any rocks, debris, vegetation and produce that may have gotten left behind.
We worked up the garden by hand with minimal tools. The dirt is very hard, so it was a lot of work. I always think how much work our ancestors had to do to be able to grow crops and gardens so there would be food for the long, cold winter months. They were hard workers no doubt.
It took us 2 evenings to completely clean the garden and prep it for spring, but it is ready for the next gardener. We made the decision to not garden next summer at the community garden and instead garden in our very own backyard. It will be great to not have to haul everything to the community garden! There is so many things we can do so we can grow fruits and veggies, no matter how much or how little space we have. I am looking forward to sharing what I have learned. We will share more about it in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!
I am actually looking forward to this winter, so I can sit and enjoy a hot chocolate and plan the garden for next summer. We will start corn, tomatoes, pumpkin and melon seeds early so they have a better chance of producing a bounty by harvest time. I will need to figure out how many potatoes we will need to plant along with other vegetables, so we can enjoy all summer and still have plenty for the winter. Gardening is important and will help with the ever increasing grocery prices. I am optimistic despite our gardening challenges and am excited for next springtime!
“The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.”
– Will Rogers
How did your garden do this summer? We would love to hear all about it.
enjoy from Our City Homestead to yours