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.
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| 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.
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. 
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. 
