My Community Garden Plot This Summer.Donna L. Long

My first harvest from the new garden plot.

This has been an incredibly busy summer. I started a new/second community garden plot back in the spring. Those of you who subscribe to this blog received a post back in the spring highlighting the sweat equity my mother and I put into the garden plot. I promised an update and here it is.

The first community garden plot, July 2017. — The first community garden plot, before cleanup, July 2017.

My first community garden plot was a weedy, junk-filled space. We started by pulling and composting weeds. Then I started on the junk. That was last year. When this spring 2018 rolled around I hadn’t made one raised bed and the growing season was about to start. Then I spied an unoccupied garden close to mine. I snapped it up. It took little work to make it a productive little garden.

The second community garden plot, after remove of a small amount of weeds and junk, April 2018. — The second community garden plot, after removal of a resonable amount of weeds and junk, May 2018.

This second plot didn’t have near the growth of weeds to remove because I started at a different time of the year. The first plot was acquired in July 2017, the height of the growing season. Lesson learned? Clean up a plot or garden when the growing season is over or when the weeds have died back.

The raised beds were already in place. You can see the back half of the plot with plastic covering the plots to try to battle the weeds. I laid the black commercial grade weed barrier which works like a dream. No mowing or pulling weeds in the heat of summer for me!

The community garden plot fully planted in August 2018. — The community garden plot fully planted in early June 2018.

Here is what the new garden plot looked like in this past June 2018.

And here it is August 2018 with the Zinnias blooming their heads off and attracting butterflies at midday.

Zinnias blooming and attracting butterflies. The garden is lush.

Silver-spotted Skipper (Epargyreus clarus) in a Zinnia.

The photo is blurry but you can see the raised center of the flower. Newly opened, un-pollinated Zinnias are flat in the center.

My first harvest. Here we have cucumbers, soybeans, straight neck summer squash, Swiss chard, and zinnias. And here are some of the tomatoes I harvested later in the summer.

Tomatoes grown in my community garden plot.

I am very pleased and surprised I was able to plant crops and pick a respectful harvest from a plot I just rented in March 2018.

I will be teaching three, yes, three classes at the Mt. Airy Learning Tree this November. The classes are:

Gardening 101 – This course is for new gardeners who want to plant a beautiful ornamental garden on their property. We will focus on flowers and attractive trees and shrubs. There are two sessions, November 1 and 8th, 201, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

Your First Organic Garden – We will focus on how to turn a rented community garden plot or your own backyard into a productive and money-saving garden. You’ll choose the most cost-effective vegetables, herbs, and fruits to grow. At the end of the workshop, you will have a garden designed, planned, and mapped out using Square Foot gardening, the best modular planting system in use today. There are two sessions November 12th and 19th, 2018, 7:00 to 9:00 p.m.

and

The Gardener’s Calendar – In this class you will learn when to schedule seed starting, transplanting, and pruning, and how to plan and organize your chores to have a more successful and productive garden. This class was very popular last year. There is one session, November 14, 2018, 7:00 to 8:30 p.m.

If you know of someone who can benefit from these classes, please let them know.

If you would like to contact me to hold a class for your organization, contact me.