18.8.15

Square Foot Garden: Why Community Gardens are the Best Gardens. And Fall crops.

I had to leave my garden for almost three weeks. In the middle of summer. Just as the green beans were coming in. Hard to do. Very hard. But made easier by my community I garden with. An email out to the others with raised beds in the garden, asking for help watering when I was gone (and with hopes they would harvest a few things) kept my garden more beautiful than I could have hoped. I nervously headed to the garden after my return to town, not sure what disaster I would find. But, I found this lovely garden:

Lush and ready for harvest. If anything, I wish that my lovely water crew had helped themselves to more veggies- the green beans were a bit starchy and after I picked some I gave up on them. So, I did a little maintenance on my return (mainly tying up wild tomatoes trying to refuse the trellis and picking corn) and said many quiet thank yous to my watering crew. Below is my first harvest after arriving home:

The corn was disappointingly not so sweet. I thought maybe I waited too long to harvest... but some of my later planted is the same as well. Maybe variety? Who knows. Maybe a question for the OSU extension services.
As I picked corn I pulled the stalks and set them aside to dry for fall decor. I also started plotting fall crops. As predicted early in the summer, I'm trying broccoli/sprouts/cauliflower again. I went from starts, as I'm about 5 weeks too late for seeds. We'll see. I'm skeptical, but I also hate blank garden space.
 In go the new plants! As the corn gets pulled, I keep adding to it. Some onion seeds and carrot seeds. Looking forward to seeing if I really prolong the harvest season.


 I've also enjoyed garden cooking- below is an all garden meal (except the mushrooms). Finding a way to stay ahead of the veggies is the final trick in all this gardening.