Another Sunny Day: Packed Up for the Season

This morning, the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden volunteers cleaned up and packed up for the season. Mitch, Rayna, Beth, Betty, Dwain, Jeannie, Maxine & her daughter, Barb and Frank came and we got a lot done:

• Cleaned the remaining folliage out of the plots;
• Picked up the litter;
• Planted tulips and daffodils;
• Spread 11 cubic yards of compost over the plots, the flower beds and the raspberry bushes;
• Leveled out two of the compost bins;
• Stacked up the stakes;
• Packed up the scarecrows;
• Dug out even more construction debris;
• Took down the signs and gates; and
• Emptied and stored the rain barrels.

We started at 9 a.m. wearing sweatshirts and jackets and were pretty much done by 1:30 p.m. in shirt sleeves. We never would have gotten so much done so quickly without so many dedicated volunteers. We would have finished an hour earlier if we had another wheelbarrow and garden rake.

I brought some donuts, apple cider, apples, water and tea and Rayna brought some walnuts to keep our blood sugar up. We all chuckled when Florida-boy Mitch admitted that he had never tasted apple cider before. (Welcome to Ohio!) :) We loaded up Frank's truck and Mitch's car and transported our items to winter storage. Hopefully, the fence will survive in place.

We all marvelled at Rayna's beautiful lettuce and rosemary. We thought we might make a salad to celebrate the end of the season, but we were a little tired and dirty to be cooking at that moment. (We're also a little curious how much longer the lettuce will thrive in November). Maxcine and her daughter harvested bags and bags of mustard greens to serve on Thanksgiving in a few weeks. (Greens can be frozen in bags after you have fried them up). Another elderly neighbor stopped by with her dog as we started our work to share in our final gleaning of the year and, surprisingly, asked for the extra chili and jalapeno peppers.

Registration for next season will begin next February or March and we plan to break ground again for early planting the weekend after Easter in April (weather permitting). We discussed trying to get some blueberry bushes donated this Fall to plant along the north fence so that we and the neighbor children might have blueberries to harvest each Spring.