August is here and the tomatoes are doing well, as are the squash and cucumbers. We have very determined squirrels who stalk the garden looking for tomatoes, so at the first sight of color, we pick the tomatoes and allow them to fully ripen in the church window, away from the hungry, destructive squirrels! Those are some beautiful tomatoes! So far this summer, we have donated 151.19 pounds of tomatoes, 69.93 pounds of squash, and 27.11 pounds of cucumber.
In early May, our Property Team and Garden Team joined forces to run a water line across the property so we no longer have to drag hoses to water the garden. The water spigot is right there beside it. This is a huge win for the garden!
New bees were brought to the hive and doing well so far. We lost our hive from last year, so we start again!
Spring produced a plentiful garden in 2021. We thank the many hands who help plant, water and tend the garden. We had a large cabbage crop this year, producing a total of 291.07 pounds of cabbage! Most was taken to the Salvation Army that feeds 80 to 100 people per night.
Prep Day: March 13th
Planting Day: March 20th or 27th
Notes:
June 30th
Today the entire garden was watered.
We delivered:
This was the last batch of cabbage!
On the outside of the garden the clover is coming up. It is a bit spotty in some places, but should fill in!
The sunflowers will hopefully soon be as tall as the compost bins.
A garden spider has taken up residence in one of our empty compost bins. Maybe she will help keep the black widows away???
The first of our wild flowers has bloomed. It looks like a goldenmane coreopsis, but it may be a plains coreopsis.
The bee population looks healthy!
The tomatoes are getting bigger!
We still can’t see what is eating the sweet potatoes. We may need to look even closer.
The bush beans are huge – after only one week!
Finally the cantaloupe have germinated – in fact we thinned them some!
July 4th
Today we picked:
Today we picked all the Romaine lettuce!
The okra’s coming up!
Green beans are doing well!
The cucumbers are looking good!
We seem to have an ill zucchini…
The flowers for the bees are growing well!
June 23rd
The bee balm is in bloom!
We harvested all of the cabbage from the lower rows.
We delivered
So now the rows are ready for beans! We planted four half rows of BUSH beans.
We thinned some carrots that we were able to donate – even this one which seemed to be sitting down!
Compost sunflowers keep on growing!
The sweet potatoes are vining!
Tomatoes and zucchini keep getting bigger!
One of our bees taking a drink from the bird bath.
June 27th
Watered the cantaloupe, kale, cucumbers, lettuce, sweet potatoes, wild flowers and clover. Ran drip hose for 4 hours.
Tied up tomatoes and picked large zucchini (put in fridge)
20th
Today we harvested:
Cabbage: 70.27 lbs
Romaine: 1.52 lbs
Peas: 4.68 lbs
Kale: 3.55 lbs
This was the final sugar snap pea harvest, so we took down and composted all of the plants. We ended up with a total of 27.66 lbs of peas for the season!
The peas look a little rough, but are still tasty!
The kale keeps on growing!
So we keep on being able to give it!
The peach trees look well.
The compost sunflowers are also doing well.
The bee balm is pretty – and a bumblebee agrees!
More flowers from our front cutting bed.
A cosmos about to bloom.
The bees seem to doing well, maybe more?
This morning we spotted lots of bees on the lettuce.
Upon closer inspection it became apparent they are drinking the water off of the leaves! You could watch the dew drops disappear as they sipped them up!
The tomatoes are growing.
The cantaloupes still haven’t filled out. We will replant yet again!
Sweet potatoes are growing!
As are the carrots.
And zucchini.
Here we are harvesting the cabbage!
With heads of cabbage as big as some of our own heads!
One row of cabbage harvested!
and ready to deliver,
at the end of the morning!
June 8th
Watered and sprayed the cabbage with bt. We have had minimal cabbage lopper damage this year.
June 12th
Today we picked:
Kale: 3.15 lbs
Peas: 19.36 lbs
Loose leaf: 0.51 lbs
Romaine: 3.51 lbs
We had a bit of a scare when we noticed that there was a marked decrease in the number of bees going in and out of the hive, a sure sign that the hive had swarmed and gone to find a new location. Fortunately God has it all figured out! When a bee hive out grows its space a new queen is born. Then one queen leaves the hive with a large number of worker bees, looking for a new home. The remaining queen and worker bees stay and build up a new set of bees! If they are healthy then we should see an increase in the bee population over the upcoming weeks!
Today was a huge pea picking day! They are at the height of their harvest.
The cabbage will be ready to harvest soon!
The squash plants are doing well.
For some reason ants like their blossoms. We don’t know why.
The ants don’t seem to be harming the plant and we have baby zucchinis!
The Jericho lettuce is doing well.
The sweet potatoes are filling out and vining. Something seems to be eating some of the leaves. We don’t know what!
The tomatoes are growing strong, regularly being suckered and tied up.
Cantaloupes are growing but the germination rate has been low, we will keep replanting it until we get a full bed.
The front flower bed is coming up all pink and purple!
An echinacea flower with a little inch worm on it!
Cosmos!
The bee balm is tall and leggy – can’t wait to see it bloom!
The wild flower bed is coming up, and the sunflowers are growing!
Sunflowers in front of the compost bins.
June 1st
Staked tomatoes, watered garden. Summer has arrived – it promises to be a hot week!
June 4th
Hand watered beets, carrots, cantaloupes and carrots. Replanted cantaloupes where they did not come up around the buckets and in the corners.
June 5th
Drip hose watered all rows and beds for 3 hours. Hand watered beets, romaine, kale, cucumbers, cantaloupes, sweet potatoes and front flower bed.
Suckered tomatoes.
Pulled the rest of the radishes so that the beets seeds can perhaps sprout… since they have not yet!
The cosmos seems to be established – all of the plants were volunteers that came up with the radishes.
The lavender is having it’s best year in quite some time!
The cabbage heads are getting bigger!
The peas are now taller than the fence and ready to harvest!
Today we picked and took to the Salvation Army:
May 31st
This corner of the garden shows off the nice hanger that was set up for the garden hose as well as the peas which are really showing off this year!
The clover has made an appearance….
The compost sunflowers continue to grow.
The wildflowers have sprouted! Also, the mammoth sunflower seeds are up, against the fence.
Orange lilies in the front flower garden
The new trash can!
The cantaloupe are coming up, but they may need replanted in some places.
The cabbage continue to form heads.
Sometimes our radishes are a bit misshapen.
Today we delivered to the Salvation Army:
May 17th
Did some weeding and sowed red clover in the dirt space that is near the spring. That will be a nice flower for the bees, and will quickly green up that space!
May 23rd
Rain Gauge: 2 inches
Today we planted .74 lbs of red clover seed which you can see in the photo below – to the left of the garden and in front of the swing. It involved tilling the soil and then after we prepped it, planted the seeds we rolled out straw to keep it from blowing away. Clover will be a good source of pollen for the bees.
In the flower bed between the irises some rudibekia, zinnia, calendula and nasturtium were planted.
The broken trash can that would not stay upright was sent to the dump!
Sunflowers that are growing in front of the compost bins – facing Fort Ave.
The cabbage are doing great!
The tomatoes are also doing well in the raised bed as well as in the ground.
The sweet potatoes are taking off after being replanted. The bird bath provides water to our bees.
Yellow squash came up!
Carrots are thriving
The zucchini were a little spotty in coming up. It is a new variety – tender grey. We will interplant with black beauty squash so that we have a complete row of zucchini.
The kale keep producing! This is after we picked this week. To the left you can see the cantaloupe bed.
Food to be delivered to the Salvation Army.
QMPC Community Garden 