The Garden at 485 Elm
People growing together:
a collaborative community garden in Montpelier, Vermont

Season of Abundance

Just like that, the garden is vivid, with leafy profusion in many colors. We’re dining on garden food daily, and it seems we could harvest lettuces and chard forever. Flowers are blooming, ready for gardeners to cut and and fill their homes.

Our greens boxes are exploding with lettuces and salad greens of many kinds. One box contains basil ready for picking, while elsewhere in the garden our standalone boxes of Italian and Thai basil are still coming along.

We harvest greens by pinching off outer leaves, leaving a center head to continue growing, as well as using the cut-and-come-again method: cut off the entire plant tops, leaving enough in the soil to regrow.

For basil, we pinch off pairs of leaves from the top. This helps prevent flowering.

This might be our most productive chard season ever. (Do I say that every year?) Kale is coming along more slowly and quite deliciously.

Perennial herbs and self-seeding volunteers are most welcome.