Turning a Corner

After all of the work we accomplished on Thursday at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden, yesterday was almost like coasting to the finish line.   Although I was able to leave by around 4 p.m. (instead of after 6 p.m like the rest of this month), I started earlier than usual in order to miss the traffic cones in Bexley for a 5K race there in my neighborhood.  Our community service volunteers came later than usual, but I tasked all but one of them to neighborhood issues because we did not have much left to do at the SACG.  I have A LOT of extra tomato seedlings to share with anyone who stops by and will save planting our raised beds for when the Ohio After-School All-Stars visit us on June 4.

I started early yesterday in order to get out Dodge fast.  South Bexley was closing off my entire neighborhood at 8:30.  (They actually started closing the streets earlier than that.  Grrr).  I finished weeding my plot and got the rest of my pole beans planted.  I am a bean freak, and grow lots of heirloom beans, including Christmas lima beans, dixie speckled lima beans, taylor horticultural beans, goat eye beans, pink half runner beans, asparagus beans and, then of course, Kentucky Wonder and edamame.  I used to also grow  my own black beans, kidney beans and romano beans, but I just don’t have the room.   I also planted a few basil seedlings before I left for the day.

My other belated achievement was to get  my row covers in place for my greens and in the food pantry plot.   We have a massive flea beetle problem at the SACG and, later harlequin beetles will attack them. They eat our bok choy, arugula, kale, cabbage, broccoli, etc.  Although we use diatomaceous earth to sprinkle on our greens and beans (until the beans flower), it gets washed off when it rains.  I also plant garlic, onions, leeks and shallots near them to deter bugs.   A few years ago, I invested in 3 row covers that I purchased online at Amazon.  They are freakishly light weight and do not require any framing because they can rest right on the plants.  Water can seep through them and they can be re-used from year to year.  I hold them down with softball sized rocks and unfold them back periodically to weed and water my plants.  I let out more slack as the plants get taller and require more fabric.   I also use them to cover my squash plants to keep squash borers from laying eggs in the stems of my zucchini and winter squash.  I remove the row covers from my squash once they start to flower so that the bees can find them and pollinate them.  Because my squash has not yet germinated and/or formed true leaves,  I loaned a cover to Sabrina to try out until she gets her own.

Amy also came by for an hour or so.  After taking care of her plot and transplanting volunteer sunflowers, she turned to weeding the strawberry patch.  It can be a challenge to pull the weeds without also damaging the strawberry plants.   And, she deadheaded some salvia for me. 

The Community Service volunteers got a late start.  Leigh Anne called first to see if we were going to cancel because of the forecasted impending thunderstorms.  Ha!  It NEVER rains at the SACG.  Indeed, those storms passed to our northwest.  Others formed just east of us.  We are back to our regular rain pattern.  Because our big tank still has not re-filled since Ken fixed the spicket, I have begged the City to give us our free annual re-fill early.    I usually want to wait until September and sometimes never use it, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  

As soon as our volunteers arrived, I immediately tasked one with mowing in case we were surprised with rain.  We ran out of gas after mowing our lot and most of the Block Watch lot next door.  The Urban Connections folks re-filled him so that we could fimish mowing the corner lots.  One good turn deserves another, so I had another volunteer mow UC’s vacant lot (where the neighborhood kids play red rover, etc.)   I also had this volunteer weed a flower bed and weed around our fruit trees and to re-mulch some of those trees.  He also restacked our mulch bags to make room in the raised bed area.  He was quite enthusiastic and had met our urban agriculture hero Will Allen.

I assigned the other three volunteers to plant strawberry plants next door at Kimball Farms.  They had purchased the strawberries a few weeks ago from Four Seasons City Farm, but had not gotten them planted.  Our strawberries are already fruiting and turning red.  GCGC forgot to tell Kimball Farms that it had been assigned volunteers from the United Methodist Women international conference on Thursday, so I felt bad that they missed out on a critical volunteer activity.  To help compensate, I offered to plant a bed full of our extra tomatoes and to get their strawberries planted.  Pastor Brown uncovered two beds, but one of them was where we had planted tomatoes last year.  I wanted to put the strawberries there, but he didn’t.  So, we planted a row of broccoli down the middle, red cabbages to the south and white cabbages to the north.  The volunteers then watered all of the newly planted strawberry plants and cold crops.   (Later, we received .2 inches of rain around 7 p.m.).

After they finished at Kimball Farms, we worked on shrinking our wood chip pile along the alley.  Urban Connections has a small raised bed growing area for the neighborhood kids.  Cathy did NOT want me to weed it because she wanted the kids to do so before they plant in them in a few weeks.  However, she was ok with us weeding around the beds and spreading wood chips.  So, that is how the crew finished their day. 

It got warmer than anticipated.  I sent the volunteers home with volunteer tomato seedlings (for home gardens, and for one of them for his grandmother).  One of the volunteers wanted to return for her assignment next week and Leigh Ann agreed.   I was pretty wiped out and never got around to taking a group photo.  Oops. 

After they left, I turned to watering a bit in my plot, transplanting gladiola bulbs, and weeding out the herb garden in order to plant some basil and parsley.   While I was finishing up, Phil stopped by to check on this plot and plant a few tomato plants.  I also gave him a few volunteer sunflowers (because they make great cut flowers.  Just don't let them shade too many of your plants).   I also inventoried our fruit trees.  Only one of the cherry trees has many cherries to speak of.  I think that is weather related because they did not all flower at the same time this year.  There are only peaches on one of the trees and one of the trees has a lot of dead branches, which I should prune.  I am hoping that is weather related, but a volunteer pointed out some issue with some of the leaves, too.    We have no plums fruiting this year, but it is only the second year for one tree and the first for the other.  

So, this week, I need to add the mosquito dunks to the big tank and our rain barrel to avoid becoming a breeding ground.  I also need to napalm more poison ivy that has shown up.  The Block Watch lot across the street is again a forest of it near their water cistern.  Kimball Farms has its own extensive crop behind its hoop house, around its porch and growing 15 feet up the walnut tree by our rain cistern.  At Pastor Brown’s request, I sprayed the ivy near the porch and tree, but didn’t have any round-up with me when Sabrina pointed out the extensive crop behind the hoop house (along the chain link fence).   We will also be planting and transplanting winter squash and cucumbers and, hopefully, some collard greens.   Of course, there will be lots of watering and weeding to do as well.   With any luck, I will be able to leave by 3 p.m. next Saturday.