Greeting fellow gardeners. The cleanup continues. Last Saturday we pulled all the string beans, lima beans, eggplant and half the pepper plants. This week I was able to pull the remaining tomato and pepper plants. The tomato plants will go in the field away from the garden. All the other plants will be chopped up into compost to be used back in the garden. 
We still have a few cabbages left to pick. Two more weeks and then all harvesting will be done. After we finish, I will total up the numbers and send out our final amounts for the season. Always a very anticipated email.
We will be cleaning and stacking all 800 tomato cages. When that is finished, we pull up the plastic mulch and drip tape. Then I will start to chop up leaves from the church grove. I already have 4 piles waiting for me to start. Cleanup is just as big a job if not bigger than setting up the garden in the spring and summer. 
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Thank you to all the volunteers who continue to come out and help each and every week. The jobs don't get done by themselves. It takes a dedicated crew to make this mission run. 

​Greetings fellow gardeners, well all good things must come to an end. Wednesday morning Mother nature teased us with a slight frost. Thursday morning, she hit hard with a killer. All the summer plants were hit by the frost. I was able to glean as many peppers as I could, but the remaining string beans and lima beans are done for the year. Eggplant also was killed back. Cabbage is still good. Cabbage can withstand even a heavy freeze. From here on in until Thanksgiving we clean up the garden and put it to sleep for the winter. Plants need to be pulled, tomato cages stacked and cleaned and last the plastic and drip lines pulled up. When that is all done. I will start my compost chopping. Chopping up all the pulled plants into compost. Then I will chop up the leaves from the church grove to be used all next summer for more composting. Still a lot of work to do until closing. 
Thank you to all of our volunteers who show up each Saturday to help make this mission as successful as it is.

​Greeting fellow gardeners, the fall cleanup has begun. This week I was able to pull 1 row of tomatoes plants. I also went through and gleaned off all the tomatoes from the remaining plants. Red, yellow, GREEN and mush. I have a box at the end of the church parking lot with green tomatoes in. We have been offering free green tomatoes for quite a number of years. Amazing how many people stop and take some. Cauliflower is all harvested, the last 2 weeks was a whirlwind of activity as the cauliflower came in fast and furious. I was harvesting cauliflower and broccoli every day. I never had veggies come in that fast and all at once like this year.  This Saturday cabbage will be on the menu again. We should be harvesting cabbage all the way to the end.  
You may or may not have noticed but our wedding trellis was over grown this year. I planted bird house gourds. They went wild. We will be picking them, setting them in the garage for several months to dry. When they are dry we can paint them or turn them into bird houses. These gourds were grown by the native Americans just for the purpose of attracting purple martins to their villages. Really cool. String beans and lima beans round out our Saturday morning.
I was away last Saturday We had a wedding in Ithaca New York. Beautiful country up there. 
Thank you to all the volunteers who helped out in my absence. The weather is turning cooler with frost just around the corner....maybe...