Slightly Wet Work Day

Despite the drizzle this evening, Jeff and I put in some time for our regular work day at the garden.  Today our big focus was on tying up tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash that were flopping over on the short front row of peppers and eggplants and smothering them.  But some twine will help train everything back up to the fence.  And the tomatoes are looking great--nice thick stems, lots of leaves and fruit.  It should be an excellent harvest in a few weeks.

Speaking of harvest, we did pick two perfectly lovely lemon apple cucumbers.  Absolutely gorgeous.  Jeff kept one and we gave another away to a man who gardens at the local Korean church--he'd never seen a lemon apple cucumber before, but we assured him it really was a cucumber (he was skeptical).  We also found one red cherry tomato, and picked a few handfuls of beans.  The beans don't get a lot of sun (they're on shady fence blocks), which is probably suppressing the harvest.

The rain over the past few days has really been a boon for the garden.  The leaves on the plants are green and huge.  The eggplants look especially promising.  We fed some of the plants with my high-powered worm tea, though the tea had been sitting without aeration for all of today, and you could smell that it was beginning to ferment, sort of like a mead or worm beer (okay, that's a little gross, I know, but I'm hoping the plants will love it).  It's been nice to have a break from watering, but the 10-day forecast shows lots of hot, sunny days ahead, so it'll be time to get the watering cans back out soon.

More Harvesting (and lots of watering)

We're getting sprinkles right now, but no serious rain.  We haven't had more than a quarter inch of rain at a pop for more than a month.  Luckily, we have a core of volunteer waterers who keep helping keep the plants alive and thriving.

Yesterday, I watered the whole garden in the evening.  Of the three lemon apple cucumbers I'd seen on Wednesday, only one was left.  So I picked it.  It's a beauty, and I think we'll have it in our salad tonight.  I heard that there were some red cherry tomatoes, but they had been picked.  Someone had harvested some of the dinosaur kale, too, which is great. 

Kelly was planning to water this morning, and I asked her to pick pole beans while she was at it.  As long as we keep up with them, they'll keep producing.

I need to get over there with some twine this week and start tying the tomato plants up to the fence--they're starting to smother the peppers and eggplants.  And some of the cucumbers are really working their way towards the sidewalk, too.

I saw a bunch of friends while watering last night, and also met Barbara, a resident of the nearby apartment building.  She was happy to chat and informed me that she was 82 years old .  I picked her a bouquet of golden chard leaves and told her how to give them a quick stir fry with olive oil and garlic.

If we can pick up a moderate amount of rain, the plants will really surge, even more.  I look forward to sharing more veggies with the neighbors.  (Note to self:  I need to update our signs.)

Good Work Days (stuff is growing!)

I've been remiss in reporting on progress at the 200 Foot Garden.  Two weeks ago, Leslie and Tova brought some friends to help out on our Wednesday work day, and we watered and did some weeding and picked snow peas.  This past Wednesday, Jeff and I were there for the work day, and we watered with some of my new high powered worm tea, and we also took down the snow peas, which were mostly finished for the season.  Taking them down gives some light and room for the squash behind them to start growing and climbing.  In the process of taking them down, Jeff and I each were able to harvest a good amount of pea pods.  (I cooked ours up for dinner tonight, and they were delicious!)


Here are some photos from this week's work day.  Here you can see that it's greened up nicely.  Here we have squash about to hit the fence and cherry tomatoes in front, with a scattering of marigolds.

Here is our best looking dinsoaur kale, with more to come soon.  This one started in the greenhouse.  The tomatoes, some of the kale, and the eggplant all seemed to have survived the greenhouse experience pretty well.  The cucumbers and squash did better being started outdoors, from seed.

Here is some of the golden chard that's thriving.  (It also started in the greenhouse.)  For some reason the rainbow chard hasn't done as well yet.  A mystery.

Behind the chard, you can see pole beans starting to work their way up the fence (they're already producing beans).

The tomatoes are setting fruit very nicely now.  Eggplants are starting to finally leaf out, with the hot weather.  The cucumbers, especially the lemon cucumbers, are also really starting to hit their stride.  I think we've got two or three more weeks until we start harvesting much of anything besides pole beans (and even that isn't much).

Right now our biggest challenge is water.  There's no rain in the forecast for a while, and the spigot we were using got so leaky that they capped it.  Hopefully they'll repair it.  For now, we have to use the bathroom at the apartment building, which is just a little bit tougher.  But we'll figure it out.

We're at the garden every Wednesday at 6:30 pm for watering, weeding, and picking, so please come join us.

Wednesday Work Days start tomorrow

We've decided to have a regular work day every week, so we can get some weeding, harvesting, watering, and other chores done.  We have some watering teams in place for other days, but the Wednesday work days will have a bigger variety of work and make sure we're always at the garden at a regular time.  I think that'll make it easier for new people to find us (we'll put up a sign telling people to show up on Wednesday at 6:30pm if they want to help out).

So--if you're free tomorrow, I hope you'll come on by the garden and help out.  (I won't be there--Allison will be running the show.)  There's not much weeding to do, but we do need to water, and there are a lot of snow peas that should be picked--so come get yourself some crunch, sweet snow peas.

lovely snow peas

Alexis took this fabulous photo of the snow peas in the garden.  Tracy and I walked by today on our way to scrounge some mulberries, and picked a good handful or two.  Leslie and Tova were there watering and had talked a few  passersby into helping.  Thanks to everyone for pitching in!

new flowers and more peas

Alexis picked up a flat of marigolds for the garden (thanks, Alexis!), so yesterday afternoon, Alexis, Nathan, and I planted about 50 marigolds along the sidewalk.  These will form sort of a colorful border row that alerts pedestrians to watch their step.  And the added color will be lovely.

We also picked a good handful of snow peas.  Very sweet.  We gave some away to a few residents of 99 Kent Street, too.  They really like the rain, and it looks like we might get a thunderstorm tonight, which is great.  By the end of the week, we should have a lot more snow peas.  So if you're walking by, be sure to pick a few.  They're so crisp and tender we ate everything we picked before getting more than a hundred yards from the garden.

First Harvest

Yesterday afternoon, I helped water the garden with Nathan and Alexis, and we got the first fruits of the garden.  We found a few small Northeastern Pole Beans ready to pick.  Very fine beans.  More to come soon.

The first bean plant has climbed to the top of the fence, by the way.  The rest are lagging pretty far behind, but it's good to know we've got one lead bean.

And today, on my way home from a meeting, I sampled two snow pea pods that were perfectly sweet.  (The ones picked were a little bigger than this one.)