Fruition

It’s been a challenging, yet bountiful and productive month! Like many other areas, Oak Ridge had high heat and drought-like conditions through June and early July, but we are glad to finally have rains which have brought in cooler temperatures. Tomato harvest is finally here and many of our warm season crops are coming to maturity. July seems to usher in a feeling of fruition as many of our warm season plants are getting to a mature size. I think one of the most common learning experiences for new gardeners this season has been how tall indeterminate tomatoes can get! 

We had our Season Extension and Fall Gardening workshop on July 10th, where we talked about reasons and techniques for season extension and the new possibilities in growing that come with fall gardening. Many of our gardeners are excited for the fall season as some of them  actually prefer eating many of the fall crops. Our gardeners are making another garden map for their fall gardens. Last Thursday, our gardeners picked up their fall seed packets, wire hoops, and AG-19 row cover. They also placed orders for cool season transplants and cover crop seed. We’ve been talking a lot about how different cover crops can help address specific soil issues. 

Most of our fall crops in east TN are planted in August and early September, which makes the transition into fall gardening complex in a small space. It is hard to let go of productive summer plants to make room for the fall, but timing is essential. At our meeting, one of our gardeners talked about just ripping that Band-Aid off, telling the plant that it has served us well, and making space for new growth. We’ve also discussed planting in the under spaces of some of our taller summer crops, which offer shade to low growing vegetables that prefer cooler temperatures. One thing that has been discussed is planting in the understory of peppers, which will provide shade and have low growth habits that allow for season extension with row cover, which will also serve a dual purpose in protecting cool season veggies at night time. We also talked about how harvest total logs can help inform when to phase out warm season vegetables. For instance, people could watch their harvest logs to see when squash production starts to taper off.

This year one thing I have noticed and loved our gardeners doing is companion planting to attract beneficial insects. This past month in the garden, one of our gardeners spotted a tobacco hornworm that became food for parasitic wasp larvae! Companion planting this year has been a combination of encouraging planting zinnias and marigolds, while letting some things like dill or cilantro go to seed to encourage other garden visitors. There are so many wonderful layers for learning and exploration in gardening. 

We are looking forward to more surprises in August! 

What a year!

We’ve had an amazing year here at Grow Oak Ridge, connecting locally grown food with the public in Anderson County, TN and surrounding areas.

NEW this year - We launched Grow Your Own: Backyard & Community Gardening, a new program that has helped 14 families learn to grow their own food. They’ve received seeds, seedlings, hand tools, organic fertilizers, and most importantly, their very own garden “coach” to help them along the way. Each family has grown close to 75 pounds of food, wow!

We also provided affordable selling venues for 41 small businesses through our Winter Farmers Market and Market-To-Go programs.

In Nourish Kids Club, we served 820 children and gave away more than $4,000 in local produce to kids!

And of course we offer Double Up Food Bucks at both of our markets, bringing an extra $20 in fresh produce to those who use their SNAP benefits at our markets.

Won’t you join us today, and donate to Grow Oak Ridge? Together we’re making Oak Ridge and surrounding communities healthier, and supporting a thriving local economy as well.

Art, creativity, science, and magic

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

It is hard to believe that we are wrapping up our first Grow Your Own season as a partner site to Grow Appalachia. It is an understatement to say that I have learned so much in my first year as the program coordinator and garden coach. Lessons learned have been in program development & in gardening as a whole. This year, we recruited 10 families, sourced supplies, had roughly 80 garden visits, 7 group gatherings, and worked on learning and growing the infrastructure for our program. The rewards have been many this season & there is always room for improvement. Next year, I want to work more on participant retention, creating more community spaces, and increasing our overall food production from each garden. 

This year has been one of the most challenging, while simultaneously gratifying, years of my life. Growing your own garden may change the way that you approach and see food, recognizing all the effort it takes to produce even one delicious garden tomato cannot be fully realized without this experience. Gardening gives people a chance to slow down, focus, and refocus – cementing mental connections with physical activities. It is a chance to connect with the land & everything that lives on it. It is art and creativity, and it is also science and magic. There is something truly special when a seed sprouts.  

I was just in conversation with one of our families about how variable and complex gardening can be. No garden will look the same & even two of the same type of tomato plants on the same plot may grow differently than one another & encounter completely different successes and challenges. We laughed about how one garden can be so bewildering. 

My favorite garden memories from this season were during the garden visits that I brought the T-Post driver & getting to witness the feeling of accomplishment that people experienced when they stepped back to see the infrastructure they established. They have also been the memories of the joy that people experienced while welcoming their first ever harvest. 

I was incredibly fortunate in my first year to work with a welcoming, energetic, and kind group of gardeners. I really appreciated their grace as I learned through this process. I feel as if I learned just as much from them as they learned from me. In our garden visits, I constantly found myself encouraged by their effort & creativity in the way they approached challenges in their gardens. It was amazing to watch our community grow, hearing people share stories, advice, & techniques and listening to them making agreements to trade seeds and produce (some gardeners especially rich in squash seeking a trade for tomatoes). Those were some of the connections that I could not have expected in the beginning. 

I am continuing to learn about the power of gardening and food growing. I am currently reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Camille Kingsolver, Barbara Kingsolver, & Steven L. Hopp. On my reading list are also Growing, Older by Joan Dye Gussow and How to Grow More Vegetables* *than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine by John Jeavons, which was recommended to me by my manager on the Berea Horticulture farm. I am continuing to learn and be inspired.

Thank you for this opportunity & for following along with us during this first year. While we are wrapping up this season, I am excited and optimistic about the seasons to come.

Fall Workday Success + The Restful Garden

         Hello garden friends, and happy AUTUMN! The equinox has passed, fall is officially here, and it is definitely starting to feel like it! We successfully completed our fall workday in the community garden last weekend and I would love to share some details about our day, as well as some fall/ winter garden plans. Here’s to some Muddy Musings!

So, as I said, the other weekend we had our fall workday. Our community garden is made up of 21 total plots in the main area, with an additional smaller section off of one side adding 7 more plots. It is a hybridized group of the general public in our community, and church members from the church in which the land belongs to. Workdays are held to maintain our community spaces, foster connection amongst fellow gardeners, and prepare the garden accordingly to the season.

If you’ve had the chance to read my last blog post, you know that our primary goal this workday was WEEDS and booooyyyyy did we work hard! I am incredibly thankful and impressed with the amount of weeding we got done within four hours out of those who showed up to work. We had just under 20 individuals getting to work, and as one of them comically said amidst a pile of green debris, it was the “free version of Planet Fitness- LITERALLY!”

Although it was pretty intense work, everyone had a fantastic attitude and great rapport. I was genuinely concerned that we might lose our beloved garden plots to the weeds for next year- but the garden will live to see another year! Our primary contesters were the Crab Grass and the Bermuda Grass within the walkways that bordered and connected each individual 5x20 plot. We set off at 8am and everyone got to picking, hacking, digging, raking, ripping, and pulling every weed that dared challenge our garden. Our volunteers HAND CLEARED aaaaaalllll of the borders and middle aisles that were roughly a foot and a half wide within a roughly 3,000 square foot space. I am impressed. Some areas, the grass was mid-calf in height, while some other areas, the roots were so incredibly deep and expansive that we would pull up sections of roots as thick as my pinky finger and longer than my forearm. The Bermuda Grass especially had thick knots of roots that we ripped out all across the garden. Bermuda Grass, interestingly enough, is an incredibly aggressive and rapid growth grass that not only spreads by seed, but by underground rhizome as well. This enables it to pop up under borders and barriers with ease. It is certainly not a friend in the garden.

Prior to our workday, we did do some preparatory work against the weeds to help in their removal. We weed-eated and then attempted a homemade “poison” with high acidity (30%) horticulture grade vinegar. The vinegar was certainly affective in killing the grass/ weeds, however, my takeaway would be that it needs a much heavier application than what I gave, and perhaps even staggered application across a longer period. I split two gallons across the *walkways* of our nearly 3,000 square foot garden. The walkways were roughly a foot and a half wide surrounding 5x20 plots. This quantity perhaps would have been better suited for about 1/4th, or one corner, of the entirety of the. garden walkways. We also had rain that fouled some of our preparatory plans, but I could see a succession application working very well. Perhaps a heavy application on day one and then again in 2-3 day increments until you saw desired results. I have heard that direct sun and heat help to expedite this process. I also shared an alternative “recipe” on my previous post if you are unable to obtain (or afford) such high acidity vinegar. Of course, we then pulled all of the grass and weeds, but it is always an option to leave them. Benefits to leaving weeds in place (yet contained) include water retention, soil preservation, and insect habitat, among others.

Moving forward, gardeners had mixed plans for overwintering their plots. Some have sown fall crops and hope for yet another bounty before frost sneaks in. Others have decided to let their beds die back and “sleep” over the winter (as in, not cutting and clearing and simply leaving green debris in place) to provide much needed shelter for beneficial insects and other garden critters. Still yet, some have chosen more of a “middle-ground” and have sown seed for cover crops. Cover crops are a seed intentionally sown for the purpose of keeping the ground “covered” over winter as opposed to bare (this helps with soil health and preservation) but without the intent of reaping a harvest. Cover crops are often various mild grasses or clovers, and some have additional soil health benefits such as clover, which adds nitrogen back into the soil. Each gardener has a different goal in mind and each of these options can be great for you depending on what you are seeking for your garden. Who knew gardening could involve so much planning!

The garden is finally feeling slower, and now freshly “cleaned”, it’s feeling ready for the great slumber. I am excited for the slow in season and in bustle, for a brief moment of exhale, a pause, and a chance to yearn for that peak summer hustle yet again. I look forward to a humble fall harvest within my own plot, and already feel excitement for the life that will come back around, in due time, after a season of rest. I certainly will enjoy a break from fighting weeds- that’s for sure. In this off time, I am planning on coming up with a more offensive measure of weed control for next season. BUT, enough weeds for now. I’m just happy they’re gone and thankful for all of those who contributed. Many hands certainly make light work!

Happy fall ya’ll, and happy “slowing"!

Casey

BEFORE

An interior path in the garden being overtaken with weeds!

AFTER!

BEFORE

AFTER

Incredible VOLS- Many hands make light work!

Upcoming garden workday+ Trialing an organic weed killer!

Hello, hello my garden friends- thanks for joining again for some “Muddy Musings”! Today I am excited to chat about our plans for our upcoming Community Workday.

Over at the community garden at First Presbyterian, Oak Ridge, we have two work days per year- one in the spring and one in the fall. The purpose of the workday is for general maintenance and tidiness; being as it is a community garden open to many different members, the workday for us ensures that all of our shared spaces are well maintained for all to continually enjoy using. The schedule for the day varies with the season, but coming up in less than two weeks we will be having our fall workday! On September 30th from 8am to 12 noon (in case you want to join ;) *wink, wink*), a group of gardeners and garden supporters will be gathering. I am so excited that we will be having quite the varied group- those who garden within the community plots, as well as some local master gardeners and other various “friends of Oak Ridge” and volunteers. It is the true spirit of a community garden, in that even those who don’t garden within its perimeter still come to support the gardeners that do! It is one of my favorite things to network within common circles and to foster community connection. It is another favorite thing of mine to see people coming together to support the growth (literally haha) of each others interests. All around, I am stoked for this upcoming workday, if you couldn’t tell.

This years fall schedule is going to be very “weed” intensive. This year, our community garden has THRIVED! Be it the steady rain we got this season, or just a little stroke of luck, the garden has been lush and abounding- including the weeds. Our biggest opponent has definitely been the Crab grass and Bermuda grass. This year, we are going to try a new (to us) way of getting our weeds under control so that they can’t continue to reseed and spread- a three step approach! The first step is to cut everything down as much as possible. We are already at work with the weed eater, getting everything within the walkways and perimeter mowed down. Second is the big step that is our “trial” which I am eager to try out! We will be using horticulture grade vinegar to spray and kill the weeds/ grass. No RoundUp needed! This vinegar is 30-45% acidity, whereas what you get at the grocery store is most often 5% acidity. You can typically acquire this horticultural vinegar at your local Home Depot, Tractor Supply, or other store of the like. Our plan is to spray the trimmed grass/ weeds with this high acidity vinegar to kill it, prior to pulling it up. Which leads me to our final, and most important step- PULLING! Now I know pulling weeds is certainly not the most exciting thing to do in the garden, however, it is arguably the most crucial of necessities. All of the previous steps to weed control would be in vain without the task of pulling the weeds up. Keeping them pulled keeps future generations of weeds at bay by taking away the ability for the existing weeds to go to seed. Even after spraying and killing everything with the vinegar, it is still good practice and due diligence to pull everything up.

I am excited to try out this high acidity vinegar and share our results in its effectiveness. It is an approved organic practice and my hope is that it will be competitively potent in comparison to its counterparts. The vinegar averages about $20 per gallon, and so depending on your weed pressure and size of your garden, it may be costly to some. An alternative option is to make a vinegar solution. I have not tried the mixture personally, however, I still believe it to be better than the alternative of mainstream chemical sprays.

The recipe for the vinegar solution is

• 1 gallon of 5% white vinegar

• 1 cup of salt

• 1 tablespoon of dish soap

Mix together and then spray as required. You can use a very small amount of boiling water to dissolve salt as needed.

If anyone tries out the above recipe, let us know! I will share results to our high acidity vinegar trial in the coming weeks.

As for now, happy gardening to you all! Wishing you all a lush and weed free garden, both for fall crops and for next summer season! (Because it’s never too early to dream about next years garden, haha!)

Casey

A stunning sunflower in one of our community garden plots this season

Counting Backwards to Move Forward

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

On September 7th, we had our end of season potluck. One of our gardeners brought a propane griddle and cooked outside. We gathered around the griddle, gathered around the table, making connections, having fun conversations, moving indoors and outdoors. Our gardeners swapped stories about canning, pickling, and what we are doing in our fall gardens. It was a great time to gather and build community. I loved hearing people share with each other what they have done this season, for instance, different varieties of tomatoes and trellising techniques. Our gardeners received water bath canners, cover crop seed mixes, and onion bulbs!  

During the remainder of our August garden visits and this September, we have been discussing what we are planning to season extend, where to plant fall crops, and how to make the transition into a fall garden. It is hard to let go of the warm season crops that have given us so much! Sometimes it feels like it's best to just rip the bandaid off and wish them well in order to welcome something new. 

We added 4 more families to the Grow Your Own program in partnership with the Y12 Gives Foundation, which will strengthen our program for the coming year by allowing 4 more families the space and supplies to get growing in the Welcome Garden at First Presbyterian Community Garden. We had a workday where they got their fall gardens planted early this September. 

For the fall, our gardeners got carrots, radish, kale, broccoli, turnips, beets, lettuce, and spinach seeds. I’ve been keeping track of the days until our first expected frost around October 27th and reminding our gardeners that it is not too late to plant several of their fall crops! As I am writing this, we are 42 days away. Drawing close, but not too late to plant radishes, lettuces, and other crops with shorter days to maturity.  

A Hopeful Gamble

Hello garden friends! I am Casey, the Community Garden Coordinator over at First Presbyterian. I am excited to begin contributing to our garden blog here, and so thankful you’ve dropped in! I have grown up gardening, however, am wrapping up my second season as a fully solo gardener (without the oversight of my dearest Gram). I hope you enjoy as I share my experiences with you, and can laugh with me as I learn along the way. Without further ado, here are some of my “Muddy Musings.”

***

Everyone loves a guaranteed win- especially with the garden. From pest pressure to ever-changing weather patterns, sometimes all a gardener wants is the guarantee that they will reap a worthwhile crop. And yet, I have found myself gambling with the garden gods to see if I can beat the system.

“What have you done Casey?” you ask. Well, I have planted zucchini in August… I know, I know- let me back up.

I did not initially plant zucchini this year, simply because I expected a good tomato crop and to be honest, I just didn’t feel set up to be able to handle both a boatload of tomatoes AND a mountain of zucchini. I am still dipping my toes into canning and preserving, and I have small children running around, and a small kitchen, and a small garden, and so I wanted to make the use of my space(s) and also not grow more than what I knew I could successfully put up. So, we were doing good, trucking right along, and we’ve been harvesting tomatoes left and right (my toddler revels in the sun-warmed tomatoes straight off the vine). As I mentioned, I have a small plot and I try to utilize every. last. inch. In my current set-up, I am a big fan of square foot gardening as opposed to rows, although I don’t have much rhyme or reason- simply tuck things in wherever they might have a smidge of space. This year, as produce has begun to slow down, I have been quick to pull tired plants and make way for new things to be sown. It was there I found myself one day in late August, with a bag of seeds and more freshly cleared ground than I was anticipating, counting on my fingers how many days to maturity various plants had and comparing it to the (then) 70-ish days until the anticipated first frost. Zucchini, having about 55 days to maturity was my clear (and only) winner. And so, four little seeds got tossed into an empty space without much emotional attachment to their success, and I moved on sowing carrots and harvesting more tomatoes.

A few days later, it was an absolute shock when each of my four haphazard zucchini seeds had successfully germinated AND were rapidly growing. Immediately, I abandoned my “eh, if they make it, they make it” attitude and I wanted them to win. There is something invigorating to me about seeing seedlings burst forth, and I got so pumped about the potential of eating risky zucchini fresh from the garden in the middle of October.

I have a few various hopes; the first is that perhaps our first frost comes a little later than anticipated and that I am able to reap fruit for at least two weeks before my plants inevitably perish. My second hope is one more of curiosity, in that my plants will be healthier with less pest pressure than in the middle of the summer growing season. Being as there is only one generation of vine borers every year, I hope that they have passed us by and with a later plant I will have missed their dreaded presence entirely. The last hope I have on the matter is simply that the space in which I have planted will have enough sustained nutrients to help the zucchini flourish. I planted in the empty space of my first year potatoes upon a pile of compost-rich soil that was freshly aerated via potatoes. While I realize both are heavy feeders, I have been fertilizing, supplementing, and amending soil all season long. Hopefully, my TLC through the season will carry over into the vigorous growth of some October Zuchs!

I have considered trialing staking my zucchini up a pole (YouTube it!) to see what that does for the plant and the fruit, but I also might just leave it and let it go, seeing as we’re already working against the odds and the season. If I actually reap zucchini this fall, even if it’s no more than three fruits, I would be ecstatic. I am excited to keep you all in the loop and share my progress and my (hopeful) success! I will say, it has become quite the paradox to go to the garden and see things slowly withering and then off to the side, my zucchini getting bigger by the day! Fingers crossed for the green guys, and I’ll be sharing updates soon. I have attached some pictures below of a few weeks of progress just within the first month! Make sure to check them out.

And so concludes this weeks muddy musings- wishing you all a good time in a garden- anyones, anywhere, just somewhere! Get outside! Get muddy!

Casey

Germination success! One week after planting

Two weeks after planting

Three weeks after planting

Stepping into fall gardening

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

Here at Grow Oak Ridge, we are starting to plan for our cool season gardens. We are continuing to welcome the harvest, especially tomatoes! I have loved seeing our gardeners find and use techniques for trellising. At my last garden visit, one of our gardeners is doing an upright trellis for their tomato plants where they built a tall structure and wrapped tomato twine around the stem of the plant, leading it upright. This method and the Florida Weave have definitely been my favorite methods to see for trellising. The upright trellis has allowed one of their tomato plants to grow at least 8 feet tall and for all of them receive a lot of airflow!

At our last workshop of the season (besides our Potluck), we talked about Season Extension and Fall Gardening. We had two guests from the Master Gardener program stop by and share their experiences with growing and cool season gardening. I think people are excited to try out cool season gardening. The timing of it all presents a challenge as far as when and what to season extend and where to plant, but we are definitely embracing it. During our latest garden visits, our gardeners are showing up with their fall garden map, planning out what they want to extend, where they can start their cool season seeds, and where they can plant cover crops. For cover crops this year, we are doing a mix of tillage radish (to break up Oak Ridge’s notoriously heavy clay soil), winter rye (to create a natural mulch and increase biomass), crimson clover, & hairy vetch (to add nitrogen back into the soil). Cover cropping is probably one of my favorite topics as I love learning about and teaching ways to improve soil health. 

Welcoming the Harvest!

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

This last month, our gardeners were delighted to welcome some of their first harvests of the season. We experienced lots and lots of rain, which led many of our squash plants to bloom and take off overnight. I made zucchini lasagna with my Green Tiger Hybrid Summer Squash harvest. It was delicious. Recipe linked here.

On July 15th, we had our Food Preservation class, which has been much anticipated throughout the season. We talked about food safety, canning, freezing, and dehydrating (which proves to be rather difficult due to the humidity in our area). We had guests from UT Extension and Susan, a home canning expert, help lead this lesson! 

I also asked that our gardeners share photos of their garden through their eyes for virtual garden tours. At our meeting, they shared their experience, lessons learned, and progress so far. I have included all their photos below! 

one of Casey’s Gardens

Kylie’s Oasis

Bray’s Bounty

Garden of Eatin’

Cloudless Sky Gardens

Lavender Lane

Our Crazy Little Garden

Ellis Garden

Moving, grooving, and heart healthy cooking

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

Things are picking up and we are moving! We are active, the bees are active, and everything seems to be in such a constant state of motion. This past month our gardeners have started to see their plants sprout and grow larger. They have been applying mulch and setting up irrigation systems. They have started to see some pest problems and have seen pressure from deer and rodents (although one of our gardener’s cats wanted to take matters into her own hands–no chipmunks were actually harmed!) This past month, our gardeners also received a Panicled Aster, which blooms July - October and will complement the bloom time of the Red Bee Balm to keep encouraging pollinators. 

Our June 1st workshop was super engaging and informative, as Heidi, who is soon to be a registered dietician (woohoo!), presented on Heart Healthy Habits and gave a cooking demonstration for a Quinoa Veggie Salad Recipe that utilizes ingredients from our summer season gardens. Heidi gave me permission to share the recipe (below). Inspired by her demonstration and presentation, I made this exact same salad this past week and dusted off an old (new) cookbook, from which I have also been pulling some recipes. There is so much creativity that happens in the garden, and in the kitchen as well!

Quinoa Veggie Salad Recipe 

1. Gather your salad ingredients

2. Combine all your salad ingredients 

3. Make your lemon vinaigrette (see instructions below)

4. Drizzle with the lemon vinaigrette  

Quinoa Veggie Salad Ingredients - 8 portions

3 cups Quinoa, cooked

1 can Chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1 medium Cucumber, seeded and chopped

1 medium Red Bell Pepper, diced

1 medium Zucchini, diced

½ cup Red Onion, diced

½ cup Basil, finely chopped

1 recipe Lemon vinaigrette

Homemade Lemon Vinaigrette Recipe 

1. Gather your ingredients.

2. Juice your lemons.  Feel free to zest them as well and add the zest to the dressing. 

3. Combine all ingredients together in a container with a tight fitting lid. A mason jar works great!

4. With the lid on tightly, shake the contents of your jar vigorously for 30 seconds.

5. Drizzle vinaigrette over the salad. Store any leftovers in the fridge.

Lemon Vinaigrette Ingredients - 1 portion

2-3 Lemons, juiced (@ ¼ cup)

¼ cup Olive Oil

2 cloves Garlic, pressed

½ tsp  Sea Salt

Syncing Up with the Spring Season!

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

A lot has happened in the last month! Finally the last spring frost date in East Tennessee passed, our gardeners got their first packages of seeds, starter plants, and more seeds for their warm season gardens! Each family received 12 tomato, 4 bell pepper, and 3 basil plants distributed from Beardsley Community Farm. They got instruction and experience in hardening these plants off prior to planting. We handed out bean, cucumber, and squash seeds too! 

This month, our gardeners learned all about Garden Maintenance at our latest workshop, led by our local extension agent and Master Gardeners from Anderson County. Over potluck snacks and dinners, we talked about beneficial insects, how to identify insects, and how to encourage pollinators to come to the garden. For this session, we also focused on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices and how to prevent plant diseases. Oak Ridge has a lot of deer pressure, which our gardeners are all too aware of. During this meeting, we talked about ways to relieve deer pressure, which has been a highly anticipated topic. We also went over trellising and how to give our happy little plants support during their growth! 

At our latest meeting, our gardeners also received a Red Bee Balm plant, which will attract many bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds, donated by Tennessee Naturescapes. In addition to having beautiful pollinator attracting flowers, red bee balm is also known as the herb bergamot, which can be used in teas among other applications. It will bloom all through May and June. Then after it is cut back, again in August. Tennessee Naturescapes is a local, native plant nursery, where we will also be headed tomorrow for a field trip to learn more about pollinators and pick out another plant! 

Most of our families have their trellises set up. During last month's garden site visits, I brought around the post driver to set the 6 foot TPosts we have for trellising. We synced our breathing! “In” on the lift up and “out" when we hit the posts. I felt like things were becoming real for our gardeners this past month, when they stepped back from the TPosts and thought “hey, I did that!” in addition to receiving plant starts and seeds. Needless to say, our gardeners are excited to get planting this month. 

Many Delights

Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program Update

This time of year always has so many delights–butterflies fluttering, birds singing, plants waking up after their winter sleep, even “weeds” decorating our yards in shades of purple, white, and yellow, and budding trees and flowers that indicate that there is more hope to come. Each passing day is getting longer and brighter, making it easier to hold onto them.   

Our families in the Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community Garden Program are getting excited and looking forward to planting. Over the last month, we were able to get gardens tilled, receive soil tests, recommend soil amendments, and set up infrastructure for our future plants. We handed out tools to set up trellises, to weed, and finally seeds! Our families will be picking up their additional seeds and starter tomato, basil, red bee balm, and pepper plants later this month. All of the preparations and hard work we have taken so far remind me of the good things to come, as images of flourishing and fruiting gardens come to mind. 

We hosted our latest workshop over Garden Planting, where we covered soil amendments, planting times, weed management, and a highly anticipated section over composting. Our gardeners left with supplies and their own 2L composting bottle, to watch composting happen in real time through the “lasagna” method of adding soil, fresh materials, and leaves. We are so grateful to the Anderson County Master Gardeners and UT Extension staff who lead us through this activity and education. 

With the winter ending, so has our Indoor Winter Farmers Market, and we are shifting solely to online orders through Market To Go. We are also gearing up for the 2023 Lavender Festival in June, where we will have a smoothie bike for kids to power their own fruit and veggies smoothies. We created a Facebook group for our participants to connect and share resources and are having a potluck style meeting at our next garden workshop. We are really looking forward to hearing stories from our gardeners about what their favorites have been so far throughout the season. There is so much excitement to come! 

Grow Your Own: Backyard & Community Garden Program begins

Grow Oak Ridge is excited to launch the first season of the “Grow Your Own: Backyard and Community” Program as a partner site with Grow Appalachia.

The mission of Grow Oak Ridge is to connect locally grown food with the public through farmers markets, community gardening and education. Grow Oak Ridge produces the Winter Farmers Market, Market-To-Go, and educational programs like Nourish Kids Club.

Katie Roach is our Garden Coach for this program. She is helping 10 Oak Ridge families grow their own food in summer 2023, and will be visiting their gardens each month, and providing them with seeds, seedlings, organic fertilizer, hand tools and education. All the families must attend educational workshops, which are also available free to the public.

Workshops are in the community room of the United Way Building, 301 Broadway Ave., Oak Ridge.

• April 6, 6-8 p.m., Garden Planting and Growing Organically Workshop

• May 4th, 6-8 p.m. - Maintaining an Organic Garden - Overview of insect and weed pressure that comes with organic gardening and how to battle them organically.

• Thursday, June 1st, 6-8 p.m. - Harvest and Heart Healthy Cooking from the Garden Workshop

• August 3rd, 6-8 p.m. Season Extension and Fall Gardening Workshop

• Potluck and Closing Stories Dinner – Thursday, 6:00 PM on Thursday, September 7th, 2023 

In addition to these, a canning workshop will be offered to our 10 families in a local kitchen, and because of space limitations this is not open to the general public.

Katie Roach, Garden Coach, talks to families at our first Backyard & Community Gardening workshop in March. It was held at the Oak Ridge Public Library so participants could see the seed library available to the public and get free seeds.

Grow Oak Ridge received three times the number of applicants it could accept into the program, which is funded by a grant from Grow Appalachia, a program through Berea College.

Workshops will also be available via Zoom. If you would like to receive notification about them, please sign up for our emails.

We are so grateful to the Anderson County Master Gardeners from UT Extension, who helped us kick off the program by teaching an introduction to gardening during our very first Garden Planning workshop on March 2. Our gardeners left our first meeting with an in depth intro to basic gardening and organic gardening, having potted marigold seeds (sourced from the Oak Ridge Seed Library), and started bean seeds in plastic bag greenhouses. After this meeting, we are hoping that our gardeners will submit their “garden map,” where they will apply the knowledge they learned during the Garden Planning workshop to decide on future crop rotations, how to stack tall and short plants, and how to garden efficiently in a small space without overcrowding. 

In addition to designing their garden maps, we have asked our 10 gardeners to each name their garden plots. They came up with a lot of fun ideas like–”Garden of Eatin’,” “Lavender Lane,” “Our crazy lil garden,” “South 40,” “South of Eden,” and “Woodland Community Garden.” Eight of our gardeners are gardening at their residences and two are gardening in a community garden. We are so looking forward to hearing about the ways that these experiences overlap and how they will apply their gardening knowledge to their own specific gardens. 

We cannot wait to see how this program grows in the lives of our participants, within our own organization, and the impact it will have in our community. I am looking forward to growing with our gardeners because this will be a learning experience for me too as my first year coordinating. I am so excited to see what the future harvest looks like for all of us.

Katie Roach and the Grow Oak Ridge staff

Help local farmers expand their reach...

HELP WANTED- Help us raise farmer income and expand the reach of local foods!

We are looking for a few Friends to coordinate neighborhood drop-off points for Market-To-Go orders this summer in neighborhoods surrounding Oak Ridge (we already deliver inside the 37830 zip).

If you can mobilize your neighbors with social media and help us arrange a central location for deliveries, we can bring food directly from Oak Ridge farmers to your neck of the woods every Saturday.

In exchange, you will receive a discount in Market-To-Go, and we’ll consider you a “Friend of Grow Oak Ridge,” which entitles you to a number of great perks, plus the satisfaction of creating a wonderful community connection to local farmers! Email Us if you’re interested.

What do farmers say?

You may not be aware... Each year, Tennessee loses an average of 1,300 family farms and 100,000 acres of farmland, according to the UT Institute for Agriculture.

That's why Grow Oak Ridge started the Winter Farmers' Market in 2016, indoors at St. Mary’s School. It gives them a warm, fun place to sell in the winter, and help make ends meet.

But farmer fees do not pay for all of the cost of markets or our charitable programs like Double Up Food Bucks, Nourish Kids, or support for Community Gardens. Your support matters! Read what farmers say, below.

We have been blessed

“We have been blessed by having the Winter Farmers’ Market in so many ways. Staying in contact with customers year-round, the ability to have income in the winter months.... seeing children taste and enjoy new vegetables, and reaching out to the community with fresh, healthy foods are important to us. We enjoy seeing eager children wanting to spend their Produce Bucks for carrots, winter squash, spinach, kohlrabi, and more. We are truly thankful to everyone who makes these joys and blessings possible.” - Jason & Kathy Daniel, Gooseberry Knoll Farm

A win-Win

“This opportunity is a win-win for farmers and customers. Market-To-Go provides a market year around for customers to purchase fresh produce that cannot or will not attend regular farmers markets for various reasons. This market helps bring farmers and customers together that would not normally cross paths!”

- Willard Brown, Spring Oak Farm

A space to make a living

“Having a climate controlled setting to market produce is a life saver in the winter. This market gives us a space to sell our product and make a living!”

- Zack Zavels, Zavels Family Farm

Helping us make ends meet

“It is incredibly hard making a living farming. The Winter Farmers’ Market keeps us connected with our customers throughout the year, helping us make ends meet.”

- Tracy Monday, Enlightenment Acres

Recipe

Collard Green Salad

Collard Green Salad

Our Grow friend and Market-To-Go customer Erin Elizabeth Smith developed this recipe for Collard Green Salad, featuring fall produce. Check out her website at http://www.sundresspublications.com/. Do you have a local, seasonal recipe to share? Email us!

Serves 4

• 4 large collard leaves

• 1 large garlic clove

• 2 tbsp good olive oil

• 1 tbsp sherry vinegar

• 4 oz ground chorizo

• ¼ cup roasted pumpkin seeds (pepitas)

• 1 tbsp cotija cheese

For the Dressing:

• Mince garlic and mix with olive oil. Let stand for at least 10 minutes.

• Add vinegar and whisk.

For the Salad:

• Wash and dry your collard leaves. Stack them on top of one another and cut them in half length-wise. Roll the leaves into a tube and cut them into ½ inch strips. (The final version should look like ribbons).

• Sauté your chorizo until cooked thoroughly. Remove from pan and let drain on a paper towel.

• Add collard leaves to mixing both with salt and pepper to taste.

• Whisk your dressing one more time and then add to the salad.

• Toss with your hands, being sure to work the dressing into the leaves. Let the salad sit with the dressing for approximately 5 minutes before serving. This allows for the collards to soften. Portion your salads into four plates. Top with equal amounts of pepitas, chorizo, and cotija.

A visit to Muddy Pond Sorghum Mill

We were camping in Big South Fork recently and headed back to Oak Ridge the long way… through Monterey, Tennessee near Crossville. It’s a beautiful drive, plus we wanted to pick up some Muddy Pond sorghum. The fun thing about visiting Muddy Pond is that you can watch them make sorghum on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturdays in the fall, when the sorghum fields mature. It’s super fun to watch. The horses are just to demonstrate the old sorghum press… a modern press works right in the field and brings in the juice for the boiler. But, the boiler’s the real thing. You can watch the juice go in one end, wind its way as it bubbles and cooks… probably about 100 feet of pan, and then comes out the bottom end reduced by 10x.

We brought back sorghum for our customers in Market-To-Go and the Winter Farmers’ Market. Market-To-Go offers curbside pickup at Dean’s Restaurant through Nov. 12, and then at the Winter Farmers’ Market starting Dec. 3.

Home delivery is offered in most areas of Oak Ridge every Saturday, so you can always shop local!

Rebecca Williams, Director of Grow Oak Ridge

Mushrooms are blooming!

Community Gardening in Oak Ridge produces fun fungi.

One of our spring 2020 Mushroom Inoculation Station participants sent me this fine shiitake picture on 11/2/2021. He's had a couple large flushes this fall already. My personal logs have given only a few mushrooms this fall and slugs got to mine before I got to them.

Please remember that you should not eat mushrooms that you find in your neighborhood. If you really want to learn more about the fungi in your neighborhood, you might consider using multiple mushroom identification methods as a cross reference. Meanwhile it can help to know an expert who has specialized training.

Here are two online resources that I've used:

Mycokey: http://www.mycokey.com/newMycoKeySite/MycoKeyIdentQuick.html

and a Danish website that uses artificial intelligence: https://svampe.databasen.org/imagevision

I've included an image of a shiitake spore print that one of our participants produced. If you are a creative person, mushroom spore prints can be quite exciting on display to spark conversation in your home or office. I can imagine art inspired by spore prints.

Finally, we are planning to inoculate shiitake logs again at the Grow Oak Ridge Winter Farmers' Market at St. Mary's Church gym. Our target date is Saturday, March 5, 2022. If you participated in 2020, you will receive an email invitation to this event. But you can also find out more by signing up for our weekly email (respond to the popup form you saw on this website).

Please consider supporting Grow Oak Ridge financially. This is a 501C(3) nonprofit organization, bringing community garden initiatives like the Mushroom Inoculation Station, nutrition incentive programs (SNAP/Double Up Food Bucks) and free educational children’s programs to the community through its Winter Farmers’ Market and Market-To-Go.

Win $100 in Market Tokens!

The Winter Farmers’ Market opens INDOORS on Saturday, Dec. 4, 9 a.m. to noon.

Enter to win $100 in green Market Tokens at the Welcome Booth on Saturdays in December. Winner announced Dec. 18, at Noon. Tokens valid on anything in the market or in Market-To-Go, and never expire.

OPEN: 9 a.m. to Noon, every Saturday in the winter, December through March except for holidays: Dec. 25, Jan. 1.

LOCATION: St. Mary’s School gym: 323 Vermont Ave., Oak Ridge, TN.

Market-To-Go will again be part of the Winter Farmers’ Market, and offer curbside pickup at St. Mary’s, and $5 home delivery in Oak Ridge. Safety. Convenience. 100% local.

SNAP/EBT will again be doubled for fresh fruits and vegetables at both the Winter Farmers’ Market and Market-To-Go.

Farms: Zavels Family Farm, Wilson Family Farm, Spring Oak Farm, Eco Rich Farm, Gooseberry Knoll Farm, Enlightenment Acres, Rainbow Creek, Extraterrestrial Fungi, Alive and Digginit, Blue Flamingo Farm, Lick Skillet Farm and MORE!

Bakers: VG’s Bakery, Soul Flour Bakery, Singing Bread Bakery, Homemade Toffee and Treats, Eat My Granola Now.

Plus artisans, free Nourish Kids Club and more!

HAPPY NATIONAL FARMERS MARKET WEEK!

Saturday, Aug. 7, 9 to 11 AM

Events on the sidewalk in front of Dean’s Restaurant and The Ferrell Shop, Jackson Square, Oak Ridge.

ALL ACTIVITIES ARE FREE!

• Live music by Snow Day and The Gravity Plans

• Tomato Tasting - Vote for your favorite ‘mater

• Atomic Veggie 500 for kids. Make and race a veggie car. Veggie Tasting. Take-home activity. $5 Market-To-Go coupon for participating families!

MAKE AND RACE AN ATOMIC VEGGIE CAR!