Do not be discouraged, fall greens cotyledons are present
Next workday: Monday 8/29, ~6pm
Labor day, Monday 9/5, ~6pm…I know that everyone will be home from their travels, right?
This is a great time of year to work at St. Mary’s garden. The weather is fine in the evening and we need a lot of help.
To do:
Harvest, measure, store the okra, beans, peppers
Weed the western edge of the garden, remove weeds into Jason’s truck for composting
Continue hand weeding among the beans, peppers, and okra
Be careful if you weed bed #2 where Tom planted kale and collard seed. Look carefully for the fall collard and kale cotyledons.
Please note: If we weed the garden well before the weeds go to seed, we may have a better time in 2023. Does anyone remember the out-of-control morning glory of 2021? It’s possible that our diligent weeding of morning glory in the late summer last year helped reduce the morning glory this year.
Do Not Be Discouraged: The tomato production rate in 2022 was outpacing 2021!
Thank you to those volunteers who helped harvest our tomatoes in July. We had to stop those tomatoes early for several reasons. It was sad to see so many tomatoes go to waste. But please do not be discouraged. Before we unearthed the vines, those romas were outpacing our 2021 tomato harvest!
We will learn from 2022 and do even better in 2023.
So Jason finally figured out a simple way to compare the tomato harvest from 2021 to 2022. The harvest rate of our 2022 tomato crop was higher than 2021!
Just two of us harvested $135 worth of produce on Tuesday night. Our neighbors at the St. Joseph’s food pantry took everything except for a handful of jalapeño peppers that will become hot sauce in the Schmidt household.
Fall Meeting Planning Notice #2
Jason and Walter have started compiling agenda items to discuss at our end-of-summer / fall meeting. We hope to have a group meeting at a gardener’s house in the coming weeks. Please look for a doodle poll in email. We will choose the dates where growers are most likely to attend.
Here’s a link to the St. Mary’s Fall Garden Meeting 2022.
Please email me if you want to add something to the agenda.
New Leadership Notice #2
Jason has some good ideas for community gardening and native plant gardening in Oak Ridge for 2023. It’s time for new leadership at St. Mary’s for 2023. If you are interested in helping organize the St. Mary’s garden, please let Jason know so that we can add your name to the agenda.
Get ready for the winter squash from the Isidore and Maria garden on Dutch Valley Road! Last week these butternut squash were not yet ready. By next week it will be time for us to start harvesting and delivering to the pantry. Kathy thinks we have at least 100 squash. Jason thinks it’s closer to 200. Wait until you see the candy roasters!
