A Quick Taste of a Delicious Crop
For a brief moment in the spring, asparagus is perfect for eating. The Garden at 485 Elm hosts two asparagus boxes: Purple Passion, planted in 2021, and Martha Washington green, planted in 2022. The first couple years, a handful of stalks came up. Every season, there...
What else is growing at the garden?
Plant Onions Early for Bigger Bounty Later
While we directly sow many seeds in the garden, our allium seedlings come from beautiful Cate Farm. We pick them up and plant them as early as possible to give onions and shallots time to grow. Onion seedlings are hardy and do fine in nighttime temperatures as low as...
Early Garden Doings and Growings
With nighttime temperatures still dipping into the low 30s, seeds for cold-hardy plants are sown and work parties happen every other week or so. The big push, when everything happens at once and gardeners scramble to prep beds, plant seeds and seedlings, and keep all...
Spring into the Garden!
Every year, gardeners ask when the garden starts for the season. The answer is: When the snow has melted and the soil has thawed enough to dig in. This year, the first work party was in mid-April. Volunteer crops from the previous season are hardy and delicious, like...
Happy New Year from the Never-Ending Garden
The garden is entirely snowed under. The snow and a thick layer of leaf mulch protect the growing beds beneath, preventing soil compaction and keeping the earth a bit warmer. You might think that means gardening is done for the season. If we're talking planting,...
Prepping and Planting Next Season’s Garlic
One of the last tasks we do each season is plant garlic. This task happens only after hard frosts have begun so the garlic seeds don't sprout before spring. https://youtu.be/16WzNcQOqw8 This garden bed grew summer squash and zucchini, which were prolific and...
Cold-Weather Squash Scramble
The frost that looked likely did not come to pass, but we took that as a signal to harvest all the winter squash. Gardeners planted fourteen rows of winter squash: buttercup, butternut, and delicata seeds. Some squash plants grow into widely sprawling vines. This is...
Huge Flower Grab
The temperatures in the next few days will be in the 30s. Even if it's not a hard frost, this kind of cold will finish off many of the flowers. Team Flower Power has us covered. These goddesses of garden glory remind us that it's time to harvest huge bouquets for...
A Bouquet a Day Is the Beautiful Way
Flowers are a cherished garden crop. Gardeners snip blooms to brighten their homes and give gifts that warm hearts. For garden flowers to look like this, gardeners put in planning, work, and TLC. Members of the garden's Flower Power team select, start, plant, tend,...
Potato and Shallot Harvest
The potatoes were ready, so gardeners dug them up. They were divided into shares, with each of the garden's households getting a bucket of red and purple and a bucket of white potatoes. Unlike potatoes, which must be dug up, shallots lift easily out of the ground....
A Taste of the Garden
So much food is ripe and delicious. Here are a few favorites. Tasty, colorful bush beans grow on vines that will continue producing as long as we continue harvesting them. In the basket are Maxibel haricots verts from High Mowing Organic Seeds, Tricolor beans from...
