​Greetings fellow gardeners, Last week was another busy week in the garden. Saturday, we finished planting veggies for the summer. Yellow squash, extra cucumbers, a few fill in tomatoes and sweet potatoes, all made it into the garden. To the raised beds where we planted potatoes, we added a thick layer of mulch. This week we start the big job of caging our tomatoes and peppers. At last count we have over 800 cages. The real job is making sure you place the cage carefully in the ground and not right through the drip tape. I am not the best at fixing leaks. We will finish up our flower planting this week. We used quite a bit of mulch on the potatoes. My mulch pile shrunk enough that we will be able to move one of the compost bins over to that area, so we have move room when our new storage shed arrives. This Saturday we will harvest our first veggies of the season. Our Romaine lettuce is huge and needs to be picked. WOO HOO here we go! Next on the list looks like broccoli will be ready within a week or so. Red Beets are not far behind. Thank you to everyone who helps out in the garden. The entire garden looks fabulous.  Steve, [email protected] 215-872-6616

Greetings fellow gardeners last Saturday was a wet drippy damp day. A little on the cool side. Our volunteers worked their way through it, and we were able to plant 450 pepper plants and 110 tomato plants. The garden is really coming to life. The string bean seed and Lima bean seed we planted are up and running. I ran water every day when the sun finally came out and boy did it ever. HOT HOT HOT> I was able to hill our potato rows. Now we have to add some compost to the potato beds so when the spuds start to develop, they are covered and grow under the mulch. This week we will plant our sweet potatoes. You plant "slips" these are plants that grow out of a sweet potato and then vine out eventually forming sweet potatoes at the base of the original slip. Usually around 100 days to harvest. Flowers are on the menu too. 
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There are a lot of small jobs around the garden that need to be done all summer long. One of those jobs is weeding. Weeds never take a vacation and need to be delt with constantly. I am asking for volunteers to come in during the week and weed as much as you want. The raised beds are the most vulnerable followed by the plants in the plastic. Weeds find their way up through the holes we make to plant the plants.  Weeds pull nutrients and water away from our veggie plants and can stun the veggie plants growth if the weeds are not controlled. We do our best to hold the weeds down to a mild roar but a little help from our friends would be appreciated. Let me know if you are up to the challenge and we could work out a time that is right for you.  Thank you to everyone who helps out with this mission. Steve, [email protected] 215-872-6616

Greetings fellow gardeners, last Saturday we took another step towards a full garden. Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplant, string beans and lima beans all made it in the ground. The eggplant, zucchini and cucumbers were then covered with insect netting to keep the pests away from the young plants. The netting will stay on until the plants get too big and start to push up on the cover. This week we plant our green peppers and squash seeds. I still have some room for more tomatoes, so I bought 2 more flats. I was going to hold off on planting a large number of tomatoes, but I couldn't help myself. Who doesn't like a fresh grown garden tomato? If we have time, we will start to hill our potatoes and fertilize some of our spring veggies which are about halfway to harvest. I also planted one of our raised beds with red dry corn. The stalks get over 8 feet tall and the cobbs are a deep red color. The corn is then left to dry and can be ground into corn meal. Very tasty. I will also be planting some corn seed sent to us from the Lenape Nation in Oklahoma. This is also dried and used for flour or corn meal. We will also plant some squash seed sent from Oklahoma too. 
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Thank you to everyone who worked on their hands and knees to make sure all the plants made it in the ground. Not an easy job but our volunteers are the best. Steve, [email protected] 215-872-6616

Greetings fellow gardeners, last Saturday we had a crowd of volunteers at the garden.  26 adults and energetic youngsters arrived in droves to help out WOOHOO GREAT.  Only trouble was we were laying down cardboard and straw in the aisles, we ran out of cardboard before we ran out of garden.  We were only able to cover 6 rows. Not bad but still had 5 more to go. A few quick text messages and Monday morning I had two more loads of cardboard delivered to the garden. Thank you, Royce Yoder! I was able to finish the last 5 rows this week. Now comes the fun part. This Saturday we plant our first summer veggies. Tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers and string beans. I was able to hook up the watering system so whenever it gets too dry, we can turn a valve and water as much of the lower end as we need to. Next Saturday we plant peppers and squash. Then we can start to set up our 800 tomato cages, start to plant flowers and get our 3 sisters garden ready for summer.  I still plan on planting corn for drying and sweet potatoes. Plus, several other odds and ends that need to be done. A long list that will keep us busy for many weeks to come. 
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Thank you to all the volunteers who helped out last week.  It was great to see several new faces along with the old standbys.    The garden is a special place, but it is the people that make it special. Steve, [email protected] 215-872-6616

Greetings fellow gardeners. Last Saturday we planted our 110 day potatoes and some more small cabbage. The Salford MYF was there to help out.  They cleaned up the clumps of grass from the lower end so as not to clog up our equipment. We also propped 3 flower beds.  Sometimes events in the garden take a long time. Beets and Broccoli take 55 to 60 days to harvest while cabbage and carrots are 70 days to harvest. Other times in the garden things happen really quickly. This week was a quick one. I was texting my tractor volunteers and realized they were all ready to help out. Last Friday Galen Knechel from the farm down the road, cultivated the lower end of the garden. Monday Vernon Martin used Sandy Alderfer's tractor with a 5 foot rototiller to rototill the lower end. This Thursday Jamie Welby from the Freed farm in Morwood, helped me lay down the plastic mulch and drip tape with his tractor and mulch plow. WOW thank you to all 3 for their help. This Saturday I hope to start covering the rows in between the plastic, with cardboard and straw. After that is laid down, next week May 13th we plant our first summer veggies. 5 rows of tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini and string beans. Flowers will slowly start to be added to the mix as the garden comes alive for the season. 
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Thank you to all the volunteers who help out with this mission. I very much appreciate all the extra effort our volunteers give to make this garden grow.  Steve, [email protected] 215-872-6616