Buckeyes Help Kick Off the SACG's Fall Season

This dry and hot summer has been exhausting at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden.  We never would have made it this long without our newly installed running water though, courtesy of a federal grant through the Mid-Ohio Food Bank.  Also, because watering each of our plants by hand takes so much time, we have been very fortunate to have assistance from community service volunteers from the Franklin County Environmental Court.  They mow our lawn, pick up neighborhood litter, water our plants, and weed around the Garden, etc.   We have also been blessed with a return visit from Ohio State University students through the Pay It Forward program.

The dry and hot summer has made gardening challenging, but we have also suffered from extensive groundhog damage and two-legged thieves who stole almost all of our cabbages, pulled up much of our kale and collards and took a week’s worth of heirloom tomatoes.   Kimball Farms next door did not plant this season and so the groundhog and thieves that usually feed over there have returned to the SACG.  The thieves built a staircase out of our cinder block compost bins and then used the empty rain barrel to destroy raspberry bushes so that they could climb over our fence.  Sigh.   They broke our gate on their way out.

We have continued to make weekly food pantry donations and are only slightly behind last year’s pace.  Weirdly, we have not been able to grow any winter squashes to save our lives.  I am completely mystified.  We had only 2 delicatta squashes in the co-op plot and I had only one acorn and one butternut in my plot.  Usually, we have dozens of winter squashes.  Not this year.  I’m wondering if it is the new fertilizer that I started using . . . . . .



Our melon crop did better this year than in years  past.  Straders every year donates lots of melon and cucumber seedlings, so I planted a bunch in a food pantry plot and they have done great, as have the basil seedlings. 


We are having a bumper grape crop because I completely failed to in any way prune the grape vines last year.  This means that we will have a miserable crop next year, although I intend to prune them way back this fall and recommend that they be pruned again in the Spring.  They started turning ripe a few weeks ago.  The neighborhood kids like to pick them and we have taken some to Faith Mission.


Our corn crop has done really well this year.  I staggered the plantings so that we could extend the season.  The last couple weeks have not been impressive, but I suspect that is because they were not getting enough water.  The ears were really small the last week.   Not even worth cooking.


Yesterday, we had a bumper cherry tomato crop.  Simon’s four young daughters and his better half helped me to fill a bag to take to Faith Mission.


The groundhog every week comes and chews on the sweet potato vines in the food pantry plots and sometimes my or Simon’s plot.  I put bird netting over them, but that did not help much.  I expect that this will result in some very puny sweet potatoes next month because the vines have never been able to grow much.  They regenerate after every groundhog “pruning,’ but they have never gotten very long, like last year’s bumper sweet potato crop.

The groundhog also loves to chomp down on my kale and to eat half of a tomato on our vines, particularly my heirloom tomatoes.  Grr.   One of our gardeners brought her dog into the Garden and it chased the critter out of Phil’s plot.   We’d trap it, but we don’t have anyone to check the traps every day until it is captured.

This year’s OSU group was one of the best that we’ve ever had.  They came three weeks ago and I split them into four teams.  The first team watered all of the food pantry plots, the strawberry patch, the blueberries, the fruit orchard, and the neighbor beds and then began harvesting peppers, etc.  They took a few peppers from Simon’s plot (which we returned to him) and a few tomatoes from mine and Charlie’s plot, but otherwise did a good job.   One guy mowed our lot, the orchard lot, the Block Watch lot, the Urban Connections lot and the UC backyard.  I let him harvest our tomatoes.  One team weeded the dill and mint forest and then planted beets and turnips.   One team weeded along the alley, picked up neighborhood litter and reorganized our shed.  One team weeded the west chain link fence and then harvested a row of potatoes and planted five rows of lettuce.  They were amazing.


Even better, they called this week and wanted to return this month or next.  I asked them to come  after our typical first frost because they could help me to harvest and clear out the food pantry tomatoes, pack up the tomato cages and trellises and cut back the corn stalks, etc. No one ever wants to help me clean out the Garden once it starts to get cold and bleak.  An OSU sorority came one year and we wreaked devastation on the dying plants.  I am psyched.


In two weeks, Capital University students will be coming to help weed, water, mow and plant radishes.  We are not finished at the SACG by a longshot.