Closing Out Our Dry September With Radishes

We are still puttering around in the Garden as an extremely dry September draws to a close at the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden and we face another heat wave to start October.  We received about 1.6 inches of rain for the entire month and only about an inch if you exclude September 1.  And, at a time when we should be expecting our first frost, we are preparing for another heat wave.  But, happily, Fall weather will be arriving later this week, although there is no frost danger in our forecast for at least the next two weeks.  


Last week was to be the annual Capital  Crusader’s Day of Service and 13 Capital University students showed up to help us water, weed, clean out the cabbage patch, plant radishes, pick up neighborhood litter, ferret out the secret entrances of the neighbor’s marauding groundhog and clean up our compost bins. As soon as I had given them the history of the SACG and started making work assignments, it started to sprinkle.  

No worries, I said, it won’t rain.  The weather forecast from just 30 minutes ago said it would dissipate before reaching Franklin County. It will sprinkle for five minutes and then just pass us by.  We aren’t lucky enough to get any rain.  I had already brought over the lawn mower for our community service volunteer (who was raking into piles the diseased cherry leaves) and unlocked our water hydrants.  However, when it looked as though we were in danger of having a wet t-shirt contest, I sent them back to their cars for what I thought would be a brief shower.  I had not brought a rain coat with me. I checked the weather radar and saw that it was going to pour for 2 hours, so I gave them the option of calling it a day or returning in two hours.  They chose the latter.  I locked up the Garden and the hydrants, returned the lawn mower and went home and shampooed carpets.


I returned at noon for our weekly food pantry harvest, but no one else did.  One of them called and said that they would come back at a later time.  I’m here every Saturday, I told her.    Another student contacted me about returning this week and three of them came back yesterday to help us out for two hours.   (She explained that they waited until 11:45 and then left (because it stopped raining at 11:30).  Oops).  I had them water our food pantry plots, then clean out the cabbage patch and plant radishes.   Simon’s girls came by to help (or distract them). 

We had two community service volunteers yesterday. They spent the first hour cleaning up the compost bins (by bagging the weeds that our neighbor had put there last month). Then, one raked the cherry tree leaves and mowed our lawn and the orchard lot. The other watered the strawberry patch and blueberry bushes and then helped me to harvest tomatoes for our weekly food pantry harvest.  She found the groundhog munching away (to prepare for his winter hibernation) inside our neighbor’s hoop house.  As I was packing up I discovered that no one watered the fruit trees.  Sigh.    Both of our rain cisterns were empty when I left yesterday.


Amy had been there, too.  She bagged the cherry tree leaves on Wednesday that got left behind when  it started to rain last Saturday.  She also tidied up the dying flower beds.   Simon's wife, Erica, came yesterday too and is always a great help in picking cherry tomatoes for our weekly food pantry donation while Simon waters their raised bed.  Then, they both weeded the paths (which was Simon’s monthly chore).    He had not anticipated how much food they would have to harvest, so he didn’t bring a bag to hold their produce.  He did, however, bring their own watering can (since the volunteers have a tendency to use all five of our watering cans and I’m typically using the two that I bring with me each week).  

On my way back from Faith Mission for our weekly produce donation, I stopped by the community pocket garden off Ohio Avenue (between Main and Broad).  There was a group of fellows hanging out under the enclosure at the back of the Garden.  As I drove back there to mock them,  I discovered that enclosure also doubles as their shed.  


They were eating a lot of pizza and gave me a piece since I looked like I had also spent the morning gardening (with my hat and sweat). They had spent the morning cleaning up their community garden for an art show today and a community movie night this evening.    That pizza hit the spot and meant that I did not need to make lunch.  (The pizza was from Bexley Pizza Plus, so I told them that owner Brad and his wife are also community gardeners and that back in the day, the SACG used to barter basil for free pizza for our volunteers.  One year, we provided Brad with 16 pounds of basil, but then I stupidly let too many sunflowers grow near the herb garden and it shaded out the basil).   I congratulated them on the fine weather that they would be having.  

I also swung by Old First Presbyterian Church and the Four Seasons City Farm garden there so that I could mock Daniel, but I didn’t see anyone still working.  He was probably at the "big garden" off Carpenter.