Sun + Rain = Food
A tree farmer described how trees grow as "Sleep, creep, leap." The garden does the same, with much faster cycles than trees. After a sleepy start, days of sun and rain have kicked things into high gear. All our seedlings are planted. Only a few direct-seed crops...
What else is growing at the garden?
The Garden’s Ancient History
This essay by 485 Elm gardener and naturalist Ned Swanberg originally appeared is reprinted from the Bridge with the author's permission. ESSAY: Discovering Watershed Passages Through Time and Space MONTPELIER — From the bridge near my home, I could drop a “Pooh...
Garlic Planting Day
Gardeners plant hope. Every year, we planting garlic for harvesting the next season. On August 8, 2020, we harvested the garlic planted the previous fall. We separated the garlic into two piles: We laid out these beautiful heads into shares for gardeners to take home....
Compost Happens
Eventually, everything that was once an animal, vegetable, or mineral will break down—it will all compost. Without help, that could take months, years, decades. Here at the Garden at 485 Elm, we're making compost happen faster. What's the rush? With Vermont law...
A Frost-Ready Garden
In early September, we had several nights of frost, our first of the season. Covering the greens overnight helps them live on to continue feeding us. The chard to the left and kale to the right are frost hardier; they'll do just fine on their own. When the sun and...
Squash Harvest
Temperatures are nearing freezing at night. Squash and cucumbers are very cold sensitive and will rot if exposed to frost. So we eat! In this pandemic-era garden season, we have smaller and fewer work parties. We miss our gatherings, but a safe, viable garden season...
Flowers Are Garden Crops Too
The garden's zinnias are at peak bloom and will continue until the cold. Gardeners can continue cutting and enjoying zinnias, snapdragons, flowers in the roadside perennial bed, and wild things growing in the Back 40. Gardeners are welcome to freely harvest flowers...
Gleaning and Feeding Friends & Neighbors
The garden donates food every season. This year, the donation program has been more important than ever. Beans and greens are abundant now. Volunteers from Community Harvest of Central Vermont harvest bush beans. This wall of beautiful bush beans engulfs a volunteer!...
Garlic Harvest
Masked gardeners gather at least six feet from each other to prepare for today's garlic harvest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuyptjFPMZw&feature=youtu.be Pulling garlic from the earth was quick and easy. After that, gardeners separated it by variety. We grew...
Gardening Together for Ourselves and Our Neighbors
The garden donations team had fun harvesting chard, bush beans, and onions tops to be used as scallions. They packaged them up in meal-sized bags and brought them to nearby neighbors. All that was harvested went quickly! Now that the gone-by veggies are, well, gone,...
Mulching Efficiently to Get Out of the Heat
The walkways between the squash beds have been weeded. Gardeners laid down cardboard and covered it with hay. That will suppress weeds and give the winter squash a supportive surface to ripen on. The heat is doing a number on our snap peas and snow peas, as you can...
