Growing Our Own Food





Home Sweet Home

I was born a city-slicker, and I happened to get interested in vegetable gardening kind of late in life.  I had a neighbor (Mr. Price) who was an old-timer, had a little plot of dirt, lived in a little old house, and refused to let the sprawl of the city take over his home of about 50 years.  In fact, there were apartments and condos on either side of his property--lots of traffic and lots of concrete.  Before the city limits moved out past him, he described our neighborhood as once being “way out in the country”.  His garden was about the size of SPCC’s Almost Organic Garden, and he could make anything grow in it.  He wore faded overalls every day, and kept a red bandana in his back pocket.  His hands were big and strong.  His skin was leathery.  His facial features were hard with deep lines of expression, especially around his eyes.  But he seemed to always have a little sparkle in them.  You couldn’t meet him without noticing the tell-tale signs in his face of his having worked outdoors most of his life.  


Mean, Mean Machine

I’ll never forget his old antique, one-man plow.  No matter how hard I tried to hold on to it, that thing would jerk me all around his garden and the furrows I tried to make with it were as wavy as a winding road.  I was about age 40, and he was about my age now--70.  He had arms on him as big as my legs, and he could handle that plow like there was nothing to it.  He was a fine old fellow; a real gentleman and he seemed to enjoy watching me learn (the hard way) how to grow my own food.  He helped me get my townhouse association community garden started, and he didn’t let us fail at “turning good dirt into good food”, as he would say.   I could have learned much more under his guidance, had we had the time, but he died after my second year of community gardening, and I’ll forever be grateful to him for teaching me about growing good things to eat and giving me a glimpse into that part of his life where vegetable gardening was a necessity and not a hobby. 

I only had the benefit of his tutelage (and friendship) for about 2 years, but he taught me enough about it, that I became able to do it on my own.  There’s something quite gratifying about making a pretty garden, and I often think of Mr. Price whenever I step back and admire ours.  I sure do wish he had been around a couple of weeks ago--before our church rabbits snuck in past us.  He would have seen it coming, and would have steered me away from that trouble long before the rabbits gained access to our pole beans, if he had been there. 

The hard work of our garden subscriber families has surely paid off, too.  We’ve suffered an occasional setback, but barring any future disasters, we should soon be harvesting some good vegetables.   I know we’ll be so proud to supply vegetables not only to our own tables, but also to share our bounty with others--folks who don’t always have good food on their tables, and some who aren’t even able to eat regularly.  It strikes me as quite unusual that smack dab in the middle of one of Charlotte’s most hooty-tooty neighborhoods, South Park, our installation of a common ol’ vegetable garden doesn’t seem to offend any of our neighbors.  In fact, word has it that some of our neighbors are thrilled with it, and track our progress regularly with little evening walks down to our backyard to observe how well we’re doing. 



Digging Deeper Seed Planting

We can all be very proud of our accomplishments.  Our fellowship, alone, has made the entire project worthwhile to me, and I look forward to the continuing rewards that are sure to come.  I hope everyone has had fun with this project.  I sure have, and I’ve learned even more garden tricks since we began.  Just think…it all started back in January, when our kids agreed to plant seeds and to take them home to keep warm and nurture until we could transplant them in the spring.  Now, with a productive garden, a spruced up the garden shed, some hard labor and lots of sunshine, we now have a full-fledged agricultural marvel right in our own back yard.  I think Mr. Price would approve.

Wascally Wabbits!

We are under attack!  While our backs were turned, the backyard bunnies launched an unprecedented attack on our pole beans, and pretty much wiped them out completely!  How did they get inside the fence?  They chewed three holes in it (so far).  They seem to like eating the runners off of each plant—you know…the ones that climb up the poles.  I must say they’ve won this round, but we’ve got a plan of action that should allow us to have pole beans this summer, after all.  The second planting of beans might be harvested a little later than we originally planned, but harvested they will be!

There’s a special fencing made to keep out rabbits that is made out of wire.  It is sold at Lowe’s, and it is made for just such a problem.  I’d like to see those wascally wabbits chew through that!  We’ll soon have it stretched all the way around our garden perimeter.  We’ll sprinkle blood meal around our peas and beans (bunnies hate blood meal), and we’ve found a special bunny repellant spray that, if not effective, the supplier will give us our money back.

I’m proud to announce that tonight the Disciples Men voted to make a sizeable donation to our garden project that will defray the cost of remedying our rabbit problem.  Thanks DM!  We’ll put it to good use.

We have only 20 more tomato stakes to put in place, and almost all the tomato plants have been tied up.  Have you seen the pretty little tomatoes growing on them already?  Our plants are very healthy indeed.

We have plans to till under the first crop of buckwheat tomorrow (Monday).  That should improve our soil for a second planting of tomatoes, squash and cucumbers later this summer.  I’m anxious to see how well this first planting improves the dirt.  We’ll sow another crop of buckwheat right away in hopes of improving the soil even more.  There should be plenty of time between now and when we must have those rows ready for transplanting second crops.

Now that all our plants have been put in and the trellises built, we’re moving from the planning and building phase into the maintenance phase of our garden project.  We’ve stayed on top of weeding and watering and fertilizing, so there isn’t enough maintenance left to justify a full-fledged workday next Saturday.   For that reason, we would like to do some watering demonstrations.  So far, there are only a few of us who water regularly, and it will become a big hardship in the hot summer months, without more volunteers.  Watering, however, isn’t as easy as it sounds.  Managing 200 feet of hose without knocking down all our fragile plants takes some care and planning.  In fact, it’s a two-man job.  For this reason, we’ll schedule some training.  Please plan to attend Saturday morning around 9:30 AM if you’re willing to be available this summer to help out.  Once we see how many watering volunteers we can recruit, we’ll come up with a duty roster and waterers’ schedule to make it as fair and easy as possible.

It is also time to discuss harvest and distribution and to answer questions like what day of the week will vegetables be available to subscribers?...How often will they be collected and distributed?...Where will the pickup point be located?  In other words, we need to discuss and come up with a system that works for everyone.

I can’t wait until we move into the harvesting phase of our project.  Except for the beans, we’re fairly close to being on schedule.  I’m really looking forward to one of those soggy, home-grown,  tomato sandwiches.  I’m shooting for 4^th of July as a target date for our first tomatoes. 

Charlotte's Community Gardens

No Workday scheduled for Saturday, May 19th

A couple of us plan to meet at the garden this Saturday, to do some special chores (tilling under the buckwheat and planting Crowder peas), but it won't take a lot of labor, so we're not going to schedule a regular workday this Saturday, May 19th. 

The following Saturday, May 26th, we'll want to do some weeding,  and we'll soon have a watering seminar for those who may want to be on the watering brigade.  We'll talk more about that later. 

Look forward to seeing you all Saturday after next.

Here's a link to a Friendship Garden's post on Youtube that tells the story about what's happening with community gardens all over Charlotte.


Click here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_K4TXv8CE0Q&feature=youtu.be

Clean Up Day

Weeds, Weeds, Weeds!

We really cleaned up!!  In fact, all of the rows in our garden have been weeded.  I think everyone grabbed a rake or a hoe and got-r-done today!  It's nice to be caught up and back on our garden schedule.  We still have crowder peas to plant, but there's plenty of time for that.

Ever thought dirt could be pretty?

Jerry noticed fewer rocks this time.

All the rows for second plantings have been amended with that great-looking black gold compost that Greg has been bringing to us.   Jim and Paula Staudt made short work of that chore.   The dirt looks like it would grow just about any vegetable.



I don't think the Weather Man is going to let us get the buckwheat turned under with a tiller anytime soon. There's a good chance of rain on Sunday afternoon and Monday, so we'll have to wait for the dirt to dry again. I never thought I'd complain about rainy days in a garden.  I guess I just need to have more patience.



Pete, is that a fence or a cage?

Many of our tomato plants already have stakes in place and are ready to be tied up...thanks to Robert's handy work, his big hammer and his battery powered saw. 

Remember how confident I was when I said the fence was secured to the ground well enough to keep out the deer and the bunnies?  Well, I need to re-think the part about the bunnies.  We noticed that several of our new pole bean sprouts have been chewed up pretty badly by our furry little neighbors.  We'll keep piling up rocks against the bottom of the fence.  Maybe we can eventually prevent them from scooting under the fabric.  Bunnies gotta eat too, I guess, and seeds are cheap.

Our garden just might be living proof that rocks can grow vegetables.  Seriously, our soil is getting better and better. 

Someone said that it looks like we now have a real garden.  Well, we do!

Rain, Rain. We need it!

 

Well, it remains to be seen if this Saturday, May12th, will be another scheduled workday.  We got some much-needed rain today, and it's supposed to rain again tomorrow (Wednesday).  If it rains hard, it might make the garden too wet to work on Saturday.  Little weeds are starting to grow along our expertly crafted rows of veggies, and it's time to turn under the first crop of buckwheat in the tomato garden.  It would be nice if we could get in there and take care of these things before they get away from us. 

I'll send an email to the group by Friday evening to see if anyone wants to play in the dirt on Saturday.  We shouldn't need a lot of gardeners, and it shouldn't be back-breaking work this time.  We just need to tidy up and keep everything beautiful...if it's dry enough, that is.

Rob Suydam and I replaced some pepper plants that didn't make it; planted some pole bean seeds where the original ones didn't come up, and transplanted about 20 new basil plants last weekend.  We amended the soil on the new crowder pea row, and got it ready to put seeds in the ground in the next couple of weeks.  I knew we would eventually find that row.

There are now some heavy-duty ground pins securing the deer fence fabric to the ground, all the way around our garden.  I think we've cut off any access to the family of bunnies that live on the grounds, and I haven't seen any signs of the deer that also live back there.

Have a good week everybody.  Let me know early, if you want to hoe and weed this Saturday.  Otherwise I'll send an email to the entire group letting you know if the workday is on or off.  Oh, if we do schedule it, please bring a hoe with you if you have one.