Christian Assembly Garden - Sunflowers

The sunflowers in the garden look great! Its nice to see them in the evening with the sun shining brightly in the background. This evening we could see bumble bees and honey bees flying all around the flowers. Libby mentioned growing sunflowers next year on all 4 sides of the garden. I think its a great idea as flowers add some much color to the garden.

Buckeye Lake

Things are growing out at Buckeye Lake, but very slow. There's a number of factors at work. First, the garden is in a very shady area and sees limited sun. Another factor is that the garden is not watered regularly. The crew that goes out once a week will water, but unless there is a little bit of rain, that is probably all the water the plants see. Overall we continue to see a few tomatoes, some cucumbers and some small green peppers.

Maple Grove - Tomatoes

The tomatoes are starting to wind down at  the Maple Grove garden. Its been a great year as far as overall harvest and the garden has looked beautiful most all season. We've got a number of large tomatoes from both the Porterhouse and Brandywine tomatoes. I've tried to prune some of the lower limbs, but on most of the tomato plants the weigh of the tomatoes have bent and broken a number of limbs. Even with the heavy duty tomato cages, the large tomatoes have been difficult to maintain. We had just 1 cherry tomato plant this year and this plant has produced well over 1200 cherry tomatoes!

Epworth Veggie Garden

Over the past few months we've had some church member donate a number of pots. Seems like in the spring time and early in the season we are transporting and giving away a number of plants. Having these recycled pots will help keep down some of our cost as we will be able to grow a number of plants from seeds next year and then transplant them into some large pots. Getting these pots cleaned up and organized was long over due. Just one of the many end of the year gardening projects coming up.

Epworth Veggie Garden - Pepper Plants

We have 3 different types of peppers growing at the Epworth Veggie Garden. Above you see a banana pepper plant. We have 2 or 3 of these plants in the garden. We also have some bell pepper plants (see below). I'm guessing around 7 to 8 of these pepper plants.

We also got 3 or 4 jalapeno pepper plants that were a gift from the garden at Ascension Lutheran Church. We will probably have over 100 jalapeno peppers off these plants by the end of the season.

Seems like we get a decent amount of veggies out of these plants and they do not take up that much room in the garden. I think all of these peppers will be on the "keeper" list for next year.

Epworth Veggie Garden - More Tomato Hornworms

Spent some time this evening over at the Epworth Veggie Garden. As I was tying up more tomato limbs I see more tomato horn worms. I  try to scan the tomatoes for these nasty worms each day. If left uncontrolled they can really damage a plant. Not only will they chew up leaves, but will also damage the tomato themselves.

Northwold Garden - Tomato Worms

We must have found 5 or more tomato horn worms down in "Tomato Town" at the Northwold garden. We've got over 100 tomato plants. The morning was spent tying up tomato limbs to keep them off the ground. As you are working with the tomato you can definitely see some issues. If you notice a few limbs that have been "chewed up" or tomatoes that look like they have a hole chew in them, you'll probably find a horn worm near by. Today the horn worms were even easier to spot because they all have these white larvae all over their bodies. My instinct was to destroy these worms, but upon further research I should have left these worms. The white larvae will actually feed on and kill the hornworm. Check out this link for more information http://www.vegedge.umn.edu/vegpest/hornworm.htm

Epworth Veggie Garden - Iris

Above you see the Irises in full bloom from May of this year. The irises were a gift from a neighbor. When we got them, we just planted them right in the garden without dividing them. When they bloomed they were absolutely beautiful. This fall I decided it was time to divide the plants and give them a new home with more room to grow.

The roots  were so so tangled and it took quite a bit of time to separate. I got out the water hose to remove some of the soil. Ended up planting them over by the fence next to the daycare playground.

Looking Back: Epworth Veggie Garden

I thought it would be nice to reflect a little on the Epworth Veggie Garden through the years. We started the veggie garden about 5 or 6 years ago with a vision of growing corn on the church lawn and giving the harvest to the food pantry. That first year the garden was very simple. Most veggies were grown in rows and we did have a "primitive" version of square foot gardening. Not much color was found in that first garden, just lots of green. The next winter we connected with the Growing to Green Program down at Franklin Park Conservatory and things began to change. The next year was bigger, better and much more colorful. Looking back its so important to remember our roots and go back and revisit the original vision so gardening doesn't become just a bunch of hard work, but that we are accomplishing much more than jut growing some veggies.