What's growing in the Garden? June 2010

This summer has been very hot and dry. We have had less rain than we would normally have had, and the rain we did get came all at once last Thursday! We have a limited number of veggies growing this year, but some of the perennial herb type plants are establishing themselves well in the garden. 

Meg Shelton of Shelton Herb Farm generously donated many of the plants that have done well this summer. Below are a variety of peppers including bell and a sweet white variety.

  

This is one of my favorite new peppers, it is called the Numex Twilight variety and as you can see it makes peppers that turn different colors from light purple to fiery red. They can be eaten anytime after they turn purple, but they are so beautiful I have been leaving them on until they turn red. They are super spicy though, so be careful!

Our milkweed plants are still thriving, although instead of attracting butterfly and moth larva, all we have been seeing are many aphids. I figure they are food for something also and I have not done much to eradicate them, I hope it will attract lizards (which we have seen a couple) and ladybugs (also a few). The plants are very resilient and even after letting go of one batch of seeds, new shoots have started coming up at the bottom and I think we will get a second blooming. 

One of my favorite plants, the Vitex agnus-castes is doing incrediably well. This native of the Mediterranean loves our sandy soil and the hot summer. It has more than doubled in size this season and continues to flower and bear fruit. The only plant that I have seen more bees and butterflies on than this gem has been the catnip. She has been providing great shade for the plants recently planted around her base.

Below are three of the plants who live under the Vitex shrub. 

The St. Johnswort  on topwas planted in the shade of the Vitex shrub. The one below and to the left was planted in a more exposed location. Notice the greener color and stronger looking St. J's in the top photo. The one growing more exposed is browner, smaller and not thriving as much. 

  

You can see from these pictures that the Stinging Nettle (on the left) and the Motherwort (on the right) are both becoming well established in the garden. If you look closely in the bottom of the picture of the nettle, you can see the baby plants that have come up (run) from the main plant. That is an excellent sign that the plant is established and will continue to spread and flourish. The Motherwort will do the same in the future.

Our watermelons have so far been our best summer vegetable. Here is the biggest one that was unfortunately harvested too soon. But you can see from the size of the patch that we have several more watermelons on the way. I think we have a total of 5 as of this post. Not super, but way more than the 0 we had last year!

Finally, but not least, this is our new Fig Tree! I am very excited about this addition to the garden. Meg thinks it is a cross between the brown turkey variety and the celeste variety. The fig is doing really well and has new growth! We will have to wait a few years for it to start producing, but this is definitely a start!

Castle Street Community Garden Day May 2, 2010

We had our first big (big coming from the "single serving garden") harvest today!

We harvested almost 6 pounds of kale, a pound of peas, red chard, 3 strawberries, lettuce, chamomile, and potatoes (they were very small, but the plants had died back). 

It was also Toni's birthday! The picture below shows Toni and Ethan planting Toni's birthday Jewel Nasturtium. It is a variegated variety with white and green leaves. We planted it in the Children's Garden to add some bright color to the thriving greens they have growing this season.

Steve, Chris and Angelica weeding, harvesting and watering.

Our cabbages (just cabbage?) are coming up nicely, although were you see the empty looking spots are places were plants have unexpectedly died. There is a suspicious whole towards the back corner of this garden that looks like somebody's home, but I have yet to identify the culprit. I think this somebody is also responsible for the disappearance of the sunflowers we planted in the back of the garden. The plants were completely gone and where each one had been was a small hole. The investigation continues. 

We had an amazing number of cucumber volunteers. The rows are ones we planted from starts, but in the front of the picture are those that came up of their own volition. We have started thinning them out by digging up the bigger ones and transplanting them. We could tell they were cucumbers by the distinctive taste of the shoots when we first pulled a few up. We have some other volunteers and I am not sure how many are "true" squash or cucumbers. We may have some "squashumbermelons" to taste test in a few months.

We also harvested some red chard today and most of the plants are looking strong. This was not a bed that we filled with topsoil, we used horse manure, cardboard, compost and sand. I think the size difference is based on uneven nutrient distribution. We had a similar pattern in other beds. The solution? More is more when it comes to natural soil amendments.

We have started meeting later in the afternoon to escape the heat and to enjoy the longer days. Come see us Sundays from 5:30- 7:30 at Castle Street Community Gardens, 317 Castle Street.

Castle Street Community Garden Day April 11, 2010

We had another fabulous day in the garden! We had a good turnout and got a bunch of plants in the ground. We planted tomatoes, sunflowers, calendula,  and cilantro. 

It was a good day for planting. It was also a good day for harvesting. Below is a photo of Toni and Ethan harvesting one of out looooong anticipated cabbage. We planted these cabbage back in the fall and for a possible variety of reasons they never really thrived. They looked like they were going to go to seed and not get much bigger so we decided to harvest one of them. I'll post an update on the others next week.

It was one tough cabbage! My snips are also very loved, and so are very dull. I have not yet mastered the skill of blade sharpening. My efforts have the disappointing effect of making the blade more dull rather than sharp.

Regardless, Ethan met with success and held up his hard earned trophy- a tasty (hopefully) naturally grown, community nurtured head of cabbage. Good job Ethan!

Here is one our community supporters - Stefan Hartmann, owner of Black River Organic Farm. Stefan has helped all of the gardens I am involved with -- CSCG, Tidal Creek Community Garden and The New Hanover High School Garden-- with an abundance of seedlings. Not only did he bring by plants on Sunday, but also a parasite that preys on aphids that was hitchhiking with the plants!

Thanks Stefan!

 

That jug of brown water in the right hand picture is a gallon of compost tea available at Progressive Gardens located on Oleander Drive. Bring your own container and get a free gallon of this probiotic garden tea. It helps to replenish the microorganism populations in the soil. The microorganisms are beneficial to plants and soil health in many ways. 

Chris is working hard!

Tom and Angelica were kept busy planting tomatoes. We planted several heirloom varieties that even have exotic names. I can't wait to see what "purple zebra" looks like. Other on the roster include pink beauties, a white tomato, black grape and some others whose names I will get up soon.

Here are a few shots of the garden, late afternoon on Sunday.

Angelica took these two, I couldn't decide which one I liked better. That is mullein in the foreground with broccoli and collards gone to seed in the background and catnip peeking in from the left hand side.

This is Vitex, also known as Chaste Tree. This is a very fast growing shrub I am excited to have for it's medicinal properties and also because it provides a nice filtered shade for some of the herbs. I expect it to grow fast enough to be able to shade the herb garden this year. 

The much anticipated asparagus  has sprouted! We have four of ten crowns coming up! It's hard to see in this picture, but the asparagus is the green plant with a ring of darker soil (compost) around it. As it grows we will fill in the trench. There won't be any to harvest for a couple of years, but the beginning looks promising! 

We did have one casualty - a snapped stem, so please be careful not to walk in the trench! I hope that crown will send up more spears, like the other three plants are doing.

Some more pictures of the garden. Enjoy!

 

Castle Street Community Garden Day March 28, 2010

We had a great day in the garden today! We had a good turnout and accomplished a lot. All the plants are looking good!

Our volunteers today had boundless energy! They were so excited to learn about the plants they could eat, helping Toni water the kids garden. 

Today was Steve's first day and he jumped right in helping to plant milkweed, a food for many native larval butterflies and moths. It is also the preferred (possibly only?) food for monarchs.  In this photo he is mulching the catnip/mullein/yarrow/St. Joan's Wort bed. We just found several volunteer St. Joan's Wort! How exciting!

Another first day volunteer, Michelle, took care of watering the whole garden as part of her inaugural contribution. 

I had tried to set up the trellis over the peas and pole beans, but a height/wind/balance problem brought the whole thing crashing down. Fortunately, the bamboo poles we are using are very light and there were no casualties. Tom did a fabulous job putting up twin teepee trellises with a bridge between them. Scroll down for a look at the completed structure. 

One of our regulars, Chris took care of watering all the plants in the greenhouse. She didn't know much when she started gardening with us, but she is a fast, enthusiastic learner. A teacher couldn't ask for more!  The plants you see toward the lower right hand corner were propagated by my high school students (check out their garden blog here and here. ) The seedlings are on spring break hanging out at the local plant hot spot, also known as The Greenhouse. I hope they don't learn any bad habits from those leggy tomatoes.

Nicole was with us today, planting milkweeds as well. We put in about a dozen plants scattered through the garden in non-bed spaces. She helped the garden stay organized by digging the bricks in around the perimeter of a new bed.

The second wave of enthusiastic volunteers came towards the end of the day. 'Voya and Nia helped mulch the catnip bed with sawdust after Steve and I finished mulching it with compost. That bed looks so good now! That patch in the back is where the young yarrow is growing.

The almost finished trellis. Thats Valerie from Cape Fear's Growing Green with her faithful companion, Maisy. Valerie has been a huge supporter of the garden since our inception last year. Check out an article on the garden and to find out about more green happenings in Wilmington at the website for her magazine here. She also has a calendar of green events on the website that is admirably current.

Join us next week to plant tomatoes and some other veggies and learn about compost!