Monday, November 12, 2018

Calling It A Year



The Stoddart Avenue Community Garden called it a year yesterday, a day later than usual.   With only a few hiccups, Sabrina, Phil and I were able to get the rest of the Garden put to bed despite having the cold and wet weather.  The Mid-Ohio Food Bank held a lovely reception on Thursday for the recipients of the 2018 Urban Agriculture Grant and we received formal Congressional Recognition from Representative Joyce Beatty’s office.  I dropped off our final produce donation of the year to Faith Mission around dinner time last night.


After the amazing progress that we made on October 20 in getting the exterior brambles pruned back, the weather was not so cooperative the following Saturday and we were rained out.  So much for any chance of completing the fence straightening project this year.   On November 3, we started later than usual, but still got a lot accomplished.  Amy arrived as early as usual and started clearing out some flower beds of dead annuals that had not survived our recent frosts.   Phil cut back the brambles in the food pantry plots, picked up litter in the neighborhood and consolidated our fence lumber to a sheltered location.  I emptied half of the big rain cistern, edged flower beds and trees so that they would look neat over the winter, mowed our lot, the orchard lot, the Block Watch lot, Urban Connections play lot, the strip along the alley and half of the lot next to the body shop’s paint shop in order to empty the mower.   I also harvested radishes, greens and turnips for the food pantry harvest and delivered it to Community Development for All People’s Fresh Market on Parson’s Avenue, which was pretty much empty of fresh produce when I arrived shortly before 1 p.m.   It was a long day.

On Thursday, the Mid-Ohio Food Bank formally recognized the recipients of the 2018 Urban Agriculture grants.  MOFB has such an amazing new facility in Grove City.  About half of their distributions consist of fresh produce. Matt Habash, Bobby Moser, Sarah Lenkay and a representative from Rep. Beatty’s office spoke.   The 2018 grant recipients included community gardens like the SACG as well as urban farms, including the Nabrit Memorial Garden on Brentnell, Foraged & Sown, Freshtown Farms, Happy Toes Homestead, Harriet Gardens, Highland Youth Garden, Magic House Farms, Mother’s Peace Urban Farm, Over the Fence Urban Farm, Second Baptist Community Garden, South Side Community Action Network, and Sunbury Urban Farm.  Our certificate, while lovely, was not entirely correct.  The SACG’s grant was focused only on obtaining running water, not an irrigation system, electricity or an outdoor community pavilion.  (Where would we find time?)  Seth from the City Land Bank was encouraging me to think about what else we might need next year.  I am too tired to consider another major project next year, other than adding another apple tree, although bee hives would be nice . . . .   There will be another (third) round of grant funding and this time will focus on youth education.  
It snowed on Friday morning.  When I woke up on Saturday for our 10th Closing Day, the winds were whipping and the wind chill was only 6 degrees.  Marcel emailed me at 6:30 a.m. that it was too cold for her or her children to work.   So, I made a few calls (waking up a number of people) and postponed our work day until 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 11.    I cut back the native plants in the corner garden, cut back the annuals and tender perennials in the circle flower bed, and started cutting back all of the flowers (other than the coneflowers) in the south front flower bed.  Sabrina arrived and started to do the same on the north front flower bed.  We then tackled the center flower bed together (but Amy had already taken care of most of that).  I generally leave the coneflowers up for the winter to feed our neighborhood finches and sparrows.  I also left collard greens in our neighbor plot because they will survive and continue to grow most of the winter.

Seth had asked me on Thursday if we clean out the Garden at the end of the year.  Of course we do.  We like to remove places for mold, fungus and bugs to thrive.  However, we cut the plants down, instead of pulling them out of the ground, so that the soil microbes have something to eat and there are roots in place to hold in the soil from the winter winds.  Sabrina and I also rely on cover crops (sometimes known as weeds) to protect our plots over the winter.    Truth is, I still haven’t raked out my plot for the winter and may do that this afternoon.   (I would really like to take my lawn mower . . . . ) 

Phil arrived and helped to cover our lumber from the elements, I emptied the rest of the big rain cistern (so that Ken can replace the leaky spicket at his leisure before April) and unhooked a hydrant.  Sabrina and I harvested the rest of the winter crops and herbs for our final produce donation of the year.  Sabrina then cleaned out and organized the shed.  Phil picked up more litter than had blown into the area, cut out the broken umbrella stand from the picnic table, raked out one of the neighbor beds and helped me to take down the sign.  Nothing says that we are closed for the season like taking down our sign.

We ended the season with having donated 512 pounds of fresh produce.  This was better than our harvests in 2009-12 and 2014, but considerably below last year’s level.   While our 2018 harvest of potatoes and lettuce was better than last year, everything else was less.  This is most apparent when it comes to our donation of greens (i.e., kale and collards).  Last year we donated over 100 more pounds of greens than this year.  That was in no small part due to our CS volunteers killing our seedlings at the beginning of the season while weeding that plot.  Our greens crop was also adversely affected by our over tolerance of our abundant sunflowers (which shade everything around them).  We also had 100 sf of growing space out of circulation this year due to the water project.    I am thinking about no longer focusing on greens as a donation crop in the future because they have to be taken to a food pantry within 2 hours of harvest (in order to be edible) and there are no pantries open on Saturday afternoons any longer.   This makes me sad because greens are so nutritious and difficult to find at local food pantries, but it was created a lot of stress for me this year.  I may postpone the food pantry harvests to Sunday evenings next year and then make the donations on Mondays, like we did in 2009 and 2010.



We expanded our pantry distribution this year because of the unexpected closure of the Lutheran Social Services Choice food pantry at Champion and Frebis (where we have typically donated about 50% of our produce over the years).  This year, for the first time, we also donated produce to Redeemer Lutheran Church at James and Scottwood, the House of Hope on East Main Street in Whitehall, Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Church on East Main Street and the Community Development for All People Fresh Market on Parsons.  We also continued to donate produce to the Salvation Army on East Main Street, St. Vincent de Paul's pantry next to Christ the King Catholic Church on Livingston and Faith Mission's Homeless Shelter on Grant downtown. 
This afternoon, Amy will return to the SACG to carry the lawn waste bags to the curb (to be picked up by Rumpke tomorrow).  I realized this morning, that I forgot to clean out the raised vegetable bed in the orchard plot.   Maybe if I make it back to rake out my plot, I can clean it out then. . . . .  
Before I left yesterday, I harvested from my own plot some lettuce, arugula, parsley, cilantro, snow peas, leeks, bok choy and kale.    All of those are cold hardy and survived our recent cold nights.   The brussels sprouts and cabbage that I belatedly planted in mid-September still have not ripened, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will continue to grow, albeit slowly, before we suffer a polar vortex.   I’m even considering putting row covers on them to lengthen their growing season.

Calling It A Year



The Stoddart Avenue Community Garden called it a year yesterday, a day later than usual.   With only a few hiccups, Sabrina, Phil and I were able to get the rest of the Garden put to bed despite having the cold and wet weather.  The Mid-Ohio Food Bank held a lovely reception on Thursday for the recipients of the 2018 Urban Agriculture Grant and we received formal Congressional Recognition from Representative Joyce Beatty’s office.  I dropped off our final produce donation of the year to Faith Mission around dinner time last night.


After the amazing progress that we made on October 20 in getting the exterior brambles pruned back, the weather was not so cooperative the following Saturday and we were rained out.  So much for any chance of completing the fence straightening project this year.   On November 3, we started later than usual, but still got a lot accomplished.  Amy arrived as early as usual and started clearing out some flower beds of dead annuals that had not survived our recent frosts.   Phil cut back the brambles in the food pantry plots, picked up litter in the neighborhood and consolidated our fence lumber to a sheltered location.  I emptied half of the big rain cistern, edged flower beds and trees so that they would look neat over the winter, mowed our lot, the orchard lot, the Block Watch lot, Urban Connections play lot, the strip along the alley and half of the lot next to the body shop’s paint shop in order to empty the mower.   I also harvested radishes, greens and turnips for the food pantry harvest and delivered it to Community Development for All People’s Fresh Market on Parson’s Avenue, which was pretty much empty of fresh produce when I arrived shortly before 1 p.m.   It was a long day.

On Thursday, the Mid-Ohio Food Bank formally recognized the recipients of the 2018 Urban Agriculture grants.  MOFB has such an amazing new facility in Grove City.  About half of their distributions consist of fresh produce. Matt Habash, Bobby Moser, Sarah Lenkay and a representative from Rep. Beatty’s office spoke.   The 2018 grant recipients included community gardens like the SACG as well as urban farms, including the Nabrit Memorial Garden on Brentnell, Foraged & Sown, Freshtown Farms, Happy Toes Homestead, Harriet Gardens, Highland Youth Garden, Magic House Farms, Mother’s Peace Urban Farm, Over the Fence Urban Farm, Second Baptist Community Garden, South Side Community Action Network, and Sunbury Urban Farm.  Our certificate, while lovely, was not entirely correct.  The SACG’s grant was focused only on obtaining running water, not an irrigation system, electricity or an outdoor community pavilion.  (Where would we find time?)  Seth from the City Land Bank was encouraging me to think about what else we might need next year.  I am too tired to consider another major project next year, other than adding another apple tree, although bee hives would be nice . . . .   There will be another (third) round of grant funding and this time will focus on youth education.  
It snowed on Friday morning.  When I woke up on Saturday for our 10th Closing Day, the winds were whipping and the wind chill was only 6 degrees.  Marcel emailed me at 6:30 a.m. that it was too cold for her or her children to work.   So, I made a few calls (waking up a number of people) and postponed our work day until 2 p.m. on Sunday, November 11.    I cut back the native plants in the corner garden, cut back the annuals and tender perennials in the circle flower bed, and started cutting back all of the flowers (other than the coneflowers) in the south front flower bed.  Sabrina arrived and started to do the same on the north front flower bed.  We then tackled the center flower bed together (but Amy had already taken care of most of that).  I generally leave the coneflowers up for the winter to feed our neighborhood finches and sparrows.  I also left collard greens in our neighbor plot because they will survive and continue to grow most of the winter.

Seth had asked me on Thursday if we clean out the Garden at the end of the year.  Of course we do.  We like to remove places for mold, fungus and bugs to thrive.  However, we cut the plants down, instead of pulling them out of the ground, so that the soil microbes have something to eat and there are roots in place to hold in the soil from the winter winds.  Sabrina and I also rely on cover crops (sometimes known as weeds) to protect our plots over the winter.    Truth is, I still haven’t raked out my plot for the winter and may do that this afternoon.   (I would really like to take my lawn mower . . . . ) 

Phil arrived and helped to cover our lumber from the elements, I emptied the rest of the big rain cistern (so that Ken can replace the leaky spicket at his leisure before April) and unhooked a hydrant.  Sabrina and I harvested the rest of the winter crops and herbs for our final produce donation of the year.  Sabrina then cleaned out and organized the shed.  Phil picked up more litter than had blown into the area, cut out the broken umbrella stand from the picnic table, raked out one of the neighbor beds and helped me to take down the sign.  Nothing says that we are closed for the season like taking down our sign.

We ended the season with having donated 512 pounds of fresh produce.  This was better than our harvests in 2009-12 and 2014, but considerably below last year’s level.   While our 2018 harvest of potatoes and lettuce was better than last year, everything else was less.  This is most apparent when it comes to our donation of greens (i.e., kale and collards).  Last year we donated over 100 more pounds of greens than this year.  That was in no small part due to our CS volunteers killing our seedlings at the beginning of the season while weeding that plot.  Our greens crop was also adversely affected by our over tolerance of our abundant sunflowers (which shade everything around them).  We also had 100 sf of growing space out of circulation this year due to the water project.    I am thinking about no longer focusing on greens as a donation crop in the future because they have to be taken to a food pantry within 2 hours of harvest (in order to be edible) and there are no pantries open on Saturday afternoons any longer.   This makes me sad because greens are so nutritious and difficult to find at local food pantries, but it was created a lot of stress for me this year.  I may postpone the food pantry harvests to Sunday evenings next year and then make the donations on Mondays, like we did in 2009 and 2010.



We expanded our pantry distribution this year because of the unexpected closure of the Lutheran Social Services Choice food pantry at Champion and Frebis (where we have typically donated about 50% of our produce over the years).  This year, for the first time, we also donated produce to Redeemer Lutheran Church at James and Scottwood, the House of Hope on East Main Street in Whitehall, Bethlehem Temple Apostolic Church on East Main Street and the Community Development for All People Fresh Market on Parsons.  We also continued to donate produce to the Salvation Army on East Main Street, St. Vincent de Paul's pantry next to Christ the King Catholic Church on Livingston and Faith Mission's Homeless Shelter on Grant downtown. 
This afternoon, Amy will return to the SACG to carry the lawn waste bags to the curb (to be picked up by Rumpke tomorrow).  I realized this morning, that I forgot to clean out the raised vegetable bed in the orchard plot.   Maybe if I make it back to rake out my plot, I can clean it out then. . . . .  
Before I left yesterday, I harvested from my own plot some lettuce, arugula, parsley, cilantro, snow peas, leeks, bok choy and kale.    All of those are cold hardy and survived our recent cold nights.   The brussels sprouts and cabbage that I belatedly planted in mid-September still have not ripened, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed that they will continue to grow, albeit slowly, before we suffer a polar vortex.   I’m even considering putting row covers on them to lengthen their growing season.

Saturday, November 10, 2018

Closing Postponed

It's too cold for man or beast.  Last year was pretty brutal, but this morning we woke up to wind chills in the single digits.  While I was prepared to proceed, my first cancellation came in at 6:30 a.m.  I don't really want to be out there this morning by myself cleaning out flower beds, so I made a few calls and woke a few people up and we are going to put the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden to bed tomorrow (Sunday), November 11 at 2 p.m.  


We will be:

·         Emptying the rest of the big tank

·         Cleaning out the flower beds

·         Taking down the sign

·         Raking out plots

·         Removing the umbrella stand

·         Tidying up the shed

·         Unhooking/unlocking the hydrants

·         Final food pantry harvest (turnips, greens, radishes, herbs)

·         Covering the fence wood with a tarp



It will still be cold tomorrow, but not as cold as this morning with all of the wind.  We will be finished long before sundown.  It's been my experience that we work faster when it's cold;-) 

Closing Postponed

It's too cold for man or beast.  Last year was pretty brutal, but this morning we woke up to wind chills in the single digits.  While I was prepared to proceed, my first cancellation came in at 6:30 a.m.  I don't really want to be out there this morning by myself cleaning out flower beds, so I made a few calls and woke a few people up and we are going to put the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden to bed tomorrow (Sunday), November 11 at 2 p.m.  


We will be:

·         Emptying the rest of the big tank

·         Cleaning out the flower beds

·         Taking down the sign

·         Raking out plots

·         Removing the umbrella stand

·         Tidying up the shed

·         Unhooking/unlocking the hydrants

·         Final food pantry harvest (turnips, greens, radishes, herbs)

·         Covering the fence wood with a tarp



It will still be cold tomorrow, but not as cold as this morning with all of the wind.  We will be finished long before sundown.  It's been my experience that we work faster when it's cold;-) 

Sunday, October 28, 2018

It’s Not Over Yet


We have two weeks left in our growing season at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden. We were rained out this weekend, so that’s pretty much put a nail in the coffin of our fence straightening project for the year, even though we made amazing progress last weekend.  We are likely to end the year with reaching our average goal of donating 500 pounds of produce to area food pantries, which is not bad considering that we had a plot out of cultivation for most of the summer because of our water project and lost a lot of kale and collard seedlings with careless volunteers earlier in the season.

Our frosts surprised me this year.  One day we are sweltering in the high 80’s and the extended forecast did not show frost until November and two days later, the temperatures were dipping into the low 30’s, even in town, three separate times in a week.   My backyard is super protected, so I was not affected, but we lost some plants at the SACG.  Amy and I stopped by on the Wednesday of the first frost to salvage our peppers, basil, zinnias and beans, etc.   On the following Saturday, I salvaged the rest of the peppers (except for one poblano plant that seemed very hardy) and donated them.   In some ways, I am grateful for the killing frosts.  I HATE to pull out healthy plants just because we are closing for the year.  Some years, I waited until the last minute and it was miserable because the weather had turned considerably colder.  This way, we have a few cold days to kill the plants and then a slight warm-up to clean out the plots.
Because it has been extremely cold on our last two closing days, I thought it might make more sense to give the gardeners the option of putting in their last three hours of work equity over the last four Saturdays, instead of just the last Saturday. So, starting October 20, the gardeners have had the option of coming to help clean out the Garden for the season instead of waiting until our last day on November 10.  Alyssa and Taylor always want to clear out early because they always seem to have out-of-town plans for that weekend.  The Hackensack twins came on Saturday, October 20 and hacked and sacked (i.e., bagged) the exterior raspberry brambles on BOTH the south and north sides of the Garden.   They also performed chores of watering our new apple trees and mowing the lawns.
Sabrina also came, but not to put in her work equity.  She cleaned out more of her plot, harvested the rest of her peppers, helped me to hack and sack my zinnia forest, cleared out the food pantry tomato plants growing up the west fence, composted piles that I had left around, saved marigold and cosmos seeds and watered the food pantry plots.   I cleaned out the summer neighbor bed, cleaned out the pepper/eggplant food pantry beds, harvested for our weekly food pantry donation (this time to the Apostolic Church a block from the Garden), disconnected the tall rain cistern, pruned back weed trees growing in the fence line, cleaned out more of my plot and zinnia forest, and watered some flowers.   We still have bees and butterflies visiting us.



I had hoped that we still might be able to finish the fence straightening project on the south side of the Garden at least.  However, we were rained out yesterday and I think will be hard pressed to finish the rest of our tasks in the next two weeks.  But who knows?  If extra hands show up, we might get it all one and have enough time to dig a few more post holes and attach a few more braces.  Although Phil, Amy and I will be starting an hour later than usual on Saturday, November 3, we will start at our regular 9 a.m. time on Saturday, November 10 so that we will definitely be finished around noonish.  Many hands make light work, so the more the merrier:

November 3: We will be cutting back interior brambles in the food pantry plots; hacking and composting dead annual  flowers and bagging dead perennial flowers.  (We won’t hack any flowers still in bloom or the coneflowers until closing day because we still have bees and finches visiting us and they need to eat). Then, we will be cleaning out the flower bed behind the shed and mowing the lawn if it needs it, watering the food pantry plots and neighbor bed for the very last time this season and emptying the rain tanks without creating a pond at Kimball Farms.



November 10:  We will be finishing up whatever we failed to complete the prior week before then pruning back all of the remaining flowers, roses and the native bed at the corner of Main and Stoddart., harvesting the rest of the cold crops, raking out plots, organizing the shed, mowing the lawn, consolidating and tidying up the lumber and supplies, taking down the sign, and whatever else needs to be done.  If we have time, then and only then, we will be able to consider putting in a few more fence posts and braces along the south side of the Garden between where we left off this Spring and the shed.  I will keep my fingers crossed.  Unlike last year, the weather is supposed to be nice. 



We are less than 15 pounds shy of our annual goal of donating at least 500 pounds of fresh produce to area food pantries.  While it will not set any records for us, it is not bad considering that we had a plot out of cultivation this summer because of the water project and a couple of volunteers who killed most of our kale and collard seedlings earlier in the season.   We still have lettuce, turnips, radishes, kale, collards and cabbage growing, I have my fingers crossed that we will end the season on a respectable note. 




In the meantime, if any readers have an extra bench to donate or would like to build us one (or repair one of ours), we need your help.  One of our volunteers over the summer broke one of slats from our benches (which I know was not hard to do because it was already old when it had been donated to us).  We have sanded and stained the benches over the years, but the slats were wearing thin and breakage was just a matter of time.  Nonetheless, they are extremely handy for us so that we can sit when processing materials and to store personal items while at the Garden.  

It’s Not Over Yet


We have two weeks left in our growing season at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden. We were rained out this weekend, so that’s pretty much put a nail in the coffin of our fence straightening project for the year, even though we made amazing progress last weekend.  We are likely to end the year with reaching our average goal of donating 500 pounds of produce to area food pantries, which is not bad considering that we had a plot out of cultivation for most of the summer because of our water project and lost a lot of kale and collard seedlings with careless volunteers earlier in the season.

Our frosts surprised me this year.  One day we are sweltering in the high 80’s and the extended forecast did not show frost until November and two days later, the temperatures were dipping into the low 30’s, even in town, three separate times in a week.   My backyard is super protected, so I was not affected, but we lost some plants at the SACG.  Amy and I stopped by on the Wednesday of the first frost to salvage our peppers, basil, zinnias and beans, etc.   On the following Saturday, I salvaged the rest of the peppers (except for one poblano plant that seemed very hardy) and donated them.   In some ways, I am grateful for the killing frosts.  I HATE to pull out healthy plants just because we are closing for the year.  Some years, I waited until the last minute and it was miserable because the weather had turned considerably colder.  This way, we have a few cold days to kill the plants and then a slight warm-up to clean out the plots.
Because it has been extremely cold on our last two closing days, I thought it might make more sense to give the gardeners the option of putting in their last three hours of work equity over the last four Saturdays, instead of just the last Saturday. So, starting October 20, the gardeners have had the option of coming to help clean out the Garden for the season instead of waiting until our last day on November 10.  Alyssa and Taylor always want to clear out early because they always seem to have out-of-town plans for that weekend.  The Hackensack twins came on Saturday, October 20 and hacked and sacked (i.e., bagged) the exterior raspberry brambles on BOTH the south and north sides of the Garden.   They also performed chores of watering our new apple trees and mowing the lawns.
Sabrina also came, but not to put in her work equity.  She cleaned out more of her plot, harvested the rest of her peppers, helped me to hack and sack my zinnia forest, cleared out the food pantry tomato plants growing up the west fence, composted piles that I had left around, saved marigold and cosmos seeds and watered the food pantry plots.   I cleaned out the summer neighbor bed, cleaned out the pepper/eggplant food pantry beds, harvested for our weekly food pantry donation (this time to the Apostolic Church a block from the Garden), disconnected the tall rain cistern, pruned back weed trees growing in the fence line, cleaned out more of my plot and zinnia forest, and watered some flowers.   We still have bees and butterflies visiting us.



I had hoped that we still might be able to finish the fence straightening project on the south side of the Garden at least.  However, we were rained out yesterday and I think will be hard pressed to finish the rest of our tasks in the next two weeks.  But who knows?  If extra hands show up, we might get it all one and have enough time to dig a few more post holes and attach a few more braces.  Although Phil, Amy and I will be starting an hour later than usual on Saturday, November 3, we will start at our regular 9 a.m. time on Saturday, November 10 so that we will definitely be finished around noonish.  Many hands make light work, so the more the merrier:

November 3: We will be cutting back interior brambles in the food pantry plots; hacking and composting dead annual  flowers and bagging dead perennial flowers.  (We won’t hack any flowers still in bloom or the coneflowers until closing day because we still have bees and finches visiting us and they need to eat). Then, we will be cleaning out the flower bed behind the shed and mowing the lawn if it needs it, watering the food pantry plots and neighbor bed for the very last time this season and emptying the rain tanks without creating a pond at Kimball Farms.



November 10:  We will be finishing up whatever we failed to complete the prior week before then pruning back all of the remaining flowers, roses and the native bed at the corner of Main and Stoddart., harvesting the rest of the cold crops, raking out plots, organizing the shed, mowing the lawn, consolidating and tidying up the lumber and supplies, taking down the sign, and whatever else needs to be done.  If we have time, then and only then, we will be able to consider putting in a few more fence posts and braces along the south side of the Garden between where we left off this Spring and the shed.  I will keep my fingers crossed.  Unlike last year, the weather is supposed to be nice. 



We are less than 15 pounds shy of our annual goal of donating at least 500 pounds of fresh produce to area food pantries.  While it will not set any records for us, it is not bad considering that we had a plot out of cultivation this summer because of the water project and a couple of volunteers who killed most of our kale and collard seedlings earlier in the season.   We still have lettuce, turnips, radishes, kale, collards and cabbage growing, I have my fingers crossed that we will end the season on a respectable note. 




In the meantime, if any readers have an extra bench to donate or would like to build us one (or repair one of ours), we need your help.  One of our volunteers over the summer broke one of slats from our benches (which I know was not hard to do because it was already old when it had been donated to us).  We have sanded and stained the benches over the years, but the slats were wearing thin and breakage was just a matter of time.  Nonetheless, they are extremely handy for us so that we can sit when processing materials and to store personal items while at the Garden.  

Monday, October 15, 2018

Sweet and Low



Fall weather has finally arrived to my great delight and the time has finally come to harvest our bumper sweet potato crop and put most of the garden to bed.  However, I am pretty much alone these days at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden this month since most of the gardeners have thrown in the towel for the season.  No one will do their assigned chores without me putting on my witch hat.  The court unexpectedly has stopped sending up community service volunteers, bringing our fence straightening project to a screeching halt.  Thank goodness for Amy helping me out for a few hours this weekend and being the only gardener who ever helps me to carry the lawn waste bags to the curb every other Monday. 


This was just one of four giant sweet potato patches at the SACG
As readers may recall, I had not planned on starting sweet potato seedlings this year because it has  not been a reliable crop over the years and I was having trouble getting the potatoes to form leaves.   However, quite unexpectedly, one of my sweet potatoes started forming leaves from its eyes without me even having to put the potato in water (which can cause it to form roots before the leaves appear).  So, I had lots and lots of seedlings to provide the SACG gardeners.  All but two of the gardeners grew sweet potatoes this year and their vines literally took over the Garden.   I always recommend that gardeners mark their potato hills with a tall stick where the potatoes are planted because otherwise you will not know where to water.  (The bigger the hill, the bigger the potatoes will get).  Sometimes, the vines will set new roots, but rarely form potatoes at those locations.   My own sweet potatoes did not get a lot of sun this year (being shaded out by our new picket fence, sunflowers, bean trellises and my faster growing regular potatoes, etc.).  However, my vines also grew out into the front flower bed to compensate.


Sabrina cleaned out her plot weeks ago.  She had recently gotten a full-time job (with a two-hour daily commute) and has little time left for the SACG after caring for her family and preparing to move into a new house.  I am sadly resigned that she will unlikely return next year because her new home is just a few blocks from the north Bexley community garden and she will have her own back yard available to grow her own food and flowers.   As she cleaned out her plot, and tried to stay ahead of the pesky groundhog coming from next door, she had a bumper crop of sweet potatoes.  She gave me one and a couple to my visiting friend, Paul and his wife.   Two weeks ago, Alyssa and Carly started cleaning out their plots.  Carly only planted one hill of potatoes, but had about 5 pounds of potatoes.  She was disappointed because she had 20 sf of vines.  Alyssa had a bumper crop and decided to postpone digging up the rest of them so that they could continue to get bigger.  It is important to dig them up before the first frost because, according to conventional wisdom, a dead vine damages the potato so that it does not keep as long as earlier harvested potatoes.  (Sweet potatoes will keep in a root cellar for a year or more).   

I started on the ones planted in the food pantry plot when the UMC Women visited the SACG on May 17.  I think that they planted between 6-8 hills of potatoes.  I knew the ones to the south would do better because the northern hills were shaded by sunflowers and bean trellises.  I was not wrong.  It took me hours and hours to dig all of them up.  Some one of them had even grown into and under the wood chip path.   They had even formed potatoes where they  had started new roots, but I dug them up before they had gotten very big.  (The small ones will still make great steak fries and will be easier to chop at that small size).   All in all, I harvested more than 30 pounds of sweet potatoes from just those few hills.   Crazy.   I then harvested the potatoes from 4 hills that I planted.  Two of them were worthless because they received virtually no sun.  But, I harvested more than 6 pounds of potatoes from just two hills.  That will last me all year;-)   It took me a dozen trips to the compost bins to dispose of all of the potato vines.  


Sabrina is not the only gardener we will be losing.  Marcel cleaned out most of her plot a few weeks ago and has not been able to see the beautiful cosmos that are currently blooming in her plot.  She has always wanted to start her own community garden.  She only joined us back in 2014 because Seth convinced her that she should try gardening with another garden before starting her own.  She gardened with us two years and took a year or two off when she had her last baby and returned this year to take the large plot next to mine.   However, it has always been inconvenient because she does not have her own car and has to transfer COTA buses to get here from her apartment.  Her husband has usually dropped her off and picked up her and Zion this year, but he is not a gardener and generally does not stick around.   In past years, I sometimes drove her home when I left on  Saturdays, but that required her to wait around on me to leave, which I am sure was very tedious.   So, now she has gotten her own Land Bank lot closer to her apartment and has already had her com-til delivered there.  She does not, however, have tools or a rototiller and we chatted about how to best prepare the lot now for planting in the Spring.  She also wants her own strawberry patch, so I told her to return in the early Spring when we thin our strawberry patch, so that I could give her some seedlings. 

Carly and I had a throw down about mowing the lawn, which has been her chore for September and October.  I do not expect to see her return.  The Community Service volunteers had been mowing when they came, but they cancelled the last weekend in September and then did not come during the Columbus Day holiday weekend.  When I did not hear from Brenda on Friday morning, I texted to see if everything was ok.  When I did not receive a response, I called and reached Leigh Anne who gave me the bad news that we would not have any more CS volunteers this year.  The pilot program (where CS volunteers were helping area community gardens like the SACG and Four Seasons City Farm) had been terminated and absorbed into the regular probation department.  Neither the SACG nor FSCF are approved non-profits with the regular probation department.  Leigh Anne sent me an application for the regular probation department, but this means that we will not be able to complete our fence project (with $200 in lumber and paint subsidized by the City’s Land Bank program and our own limited funds) to straighten our wire fence. 
As some readers may know, the City of Bexley opened a new community garden in April in north Bexley next to its new police station.  It is stunning and rivals the Conservatory’s community garden campus in jaw-dropping amenities.  While they have an amazingly beautiful and giant shed, a shade arbor, benches, water hydrants, gravel paths, short and tall raised beds, they have really horrible soil.  (Of all of the things to scrimp on, soil was the last thing that should have been skimped).  When I stopped by in July, the SACG plants were lush, but not at the new BCG where nothing looked to be more than two feet high.  That being said, I am a huge fan of its fence.  Most everything at the SACG was donated or paid with grant funds and we have slowly improved it each year for the past 10 years.  Bexley did this almost overnight.   And then, can you believe it, they will not rent me a plot.   Plots of between 100 sf and 400 sf are $10 each at the SACG, but 150 sf at the BCG are $40 each.  Most shocking of all, there are no compost bins at the BCG.  WTF?

We were not planning on any capital improvement projects this year at the SACG after completing our front picket fence last year.  But, the MOFB grant enabled us to have running water installed.  And then, with the City Land Bank subsidy, I decided to replace our leaning metal fence posts with more stable 2x4s and to install wood braces along the top of the fence to keep it from sagging and leaning over the winter when the brambles have been cut back to expose the naked wire fence.   While I love our wire fence (which was donated by Home Depot in 2009) and it doubles as a berry trellis and lets lots of light into the Garden, it sags in places and leans.  Not the most attractive sight in the neighborhood over the winter.  I wanted something neater looking, like at the new Bexley Community Garden.



We started the project in the Spring with our new CS volunteers and added to it in August after the water lines were installed, but the brambles soon grew too tall and we had to wait until this time of the year when we start pruning them back.   In the meantime, we painted a lot of the lumber to match our arbor and picket fence with the OSU and CS volunteers.   We barely have enough gardeners to get the Garden put to bed for the winter (which entails cleaning out the plots and pruning the berries back inside and outside the fence, bagging the brambles, etc.), so adding a capital improvement project is infeasible.  I’m lucky when anyone shows up to help clean out the Garden, so I cannot count on having enough volunteers to also dig fence posts holes and hold the braces steady while I attach them to the posts).   We still have a lot of lumber left to paint (and had planned to do so with the J&J volunteers that cancelled on us after I bought the paint), but it has gotten too cold to do so now.   Hopefully, we will have a large group volunteer to help us next Spring (or a few volunteers each week for a month at the beginning of the 2019 growing season).   You know what they say about best laid plans. . . .  . .  

I’ve been beyond frustrated that no one is doing their chores this month without my throwing a temper tantrum.  It is emotionally exhausting because I try not to get angry on a regular basis.   You’d think that I don’t send gentle reminders at the beginning of each month or post the chore chart in the shed for everyone to see when they grab tools.  You’d think that I had not first given the gardeners the option of opting out of particular months or chores before the assignments are made in May/June.   You’d think that I don’t already spend 4-6 hours at the Garden every Saturday and another 2-3 every Wednesday evening until early September.  You’d think that I hadn’t already made available for only $10/year all of the seeds, water, compost, tools, tomato cages and trellises, seedlings, tutoring, etc. that they could need.   You’d think that I don’t have any interest in having my own social life, alternative exercise options or activities.   You would think that the gardeners are illiterate or lack access to computers or cell phones or college degrees. You would think that the chores are so onerous that it would require the gardeners to spend more than 30 minutes extra at the Garden when they have a chore to perform. You would think that the youngsters would offer to help Amy and I -- the two oldest gardeners -- carry the lawn waste bags to the curb or help with any other extra work when they are there.   But you would be wrong. It only takes 15-20 minutes to mow the lawn and only watering/weeding the food pantry/neighbor plots is likely to take more than 30 minutes, depending on the time of year.



When I have to threaten to change the locks to get someone to do the simple chore that they agreed to perform when they signed up for a plot, it’s time for me to throw in the towel.  I feel bad because we just got an expensive water system.   I’ve wondered if Parks & Recreation would like to take over the SACG.   (Bexley’s Park & Recreation Department manages its community gardens).  I suspect that Amy and I would be the only returning gardeners.  But then, I remembered that Fairwood Commons will be opening soon and its residents may want to garden with us.  They will only have to walk one block, so they are unlikely to complain about the inconvenience of chores.   So, I have decided to give it one more year to see if the Fairwood Commons residents change the dynamic I have had with our new, younger gardeners in the past year or so.  But if things don’t change, I will be blogging about transferring the Garden or shutting it down completely this time next year.  
Speaking of our running water (which we are not going to need this year for obvious reasons), our plumber, Tom, from Rain One came by this week and provided seriously heavy-duty chains to keep them shut when no one is there.  Those are seriously thick chains. 
We still have lots of flowers in bloom: begonias, asters, cosmos, zinnias, petunias and African marigolds.  Our bees and butterflies are still visiting in significant numbers.  However, I think that we will have our first frost on Saturday night, so most of these will get cleaned out this weekend or next weekend.   (Jym is even predicting the possibility of snow flurries on Saturday night, so a frost seems pretty likely).   I brought my own houseplants in last week.  I am even in the process of trying, for the first time, to revive a poinsettia from last year that I kept alive over the summer.  I am curious to see if I can get the leaves to turn red by using timed lights instead of keeping it with the rest of my houseplants upstairs. 


Aside from harvesting our sweet potato crop, I also found more volunteer potatoes from the ones that Stan started a few years ago (and we never seem to harvest them all, hence all of the volunteer potatoes that we get year after year).  Amy spent a couple of hours helping to harvest our remaining pole beans and chopping down and bagging corn stalks.  I finished that project and raked out three or four of the food pantry plots, weeded a bit, cleaned out tomato plants from my plot, harvested the rest of the basil and most of the eggplants, thinned the turnips, and then conducted our weekly food pantry harvest until my arms felt like rubber.  I drove everything down to Faith Mission and then went home and did more of the same work in my own back yard while listening to the last 10 minutes of the OSU-Minnesota game.   This weekend, I will be working on cutting back and bagging the raspberry bushes on the south fence (and in my plot), removing the rest of the eggplants and tomato plants, removing the zinnia forest from my plot and disconnecting the tall rain tank.  Volunteers are always welcome and, if you give me advance notice, I’ll bring refreshments that we had planned to provide our CS volunteers before that program was unexpectedly cancelled.