NATURE'S BOUNTY

With steady rain throughout the summer, the community garden is providing generous bounty to all gardeners.  The donation garden is also producing enough that a twice-weekly harvest is required.  Beans, peas, garlic, eggplant, brassicas, basil and parsley, onions, kale, swiss chard, beets, carrots and zucchini and yellow squash are making up the bulk of the donations to area food pantries, Free Meals for Kids and Senior Solutions programs.

Bush beans are especially prolific again this year, as a series of succession sowings were made.  Following an initial planting, subsequent plantings were made every two weeks.  While the first sowing is now spent, the next two plantings are providing a bumper crop, and the fourth and fifth plantings will be producing soon.  Peas are almost exhausted so will be removed soon to make room for a fall carrot crop.  And radishes were just sown today when the first planting of beans was removed.

Tomato plants are heavy with fruit, but ripening won't happen for another week or two.  Fortunately the weather forecast does not show overnight lows below the mid-50s, giving the tomatoes time to ripen.

Garlic was harvested 3 weeks ago and is being cured, as is the first harvest of yellow onions and potatoes.  Sweet corn is looking good, especially to wildlife, as stripped and eaten ears were found this morning at the base of the plants.  An application of Repels-All (an all-natural, biodegradable animal repellent) should hopefully prevent further destruction of the crop.    

With another six weeks before average first frost date, this year's harvest may be the best on record. Happy gardening!