The Winter Squash Bed Becomes the Garlic Bed
Winter squash harvest day comes before the first frost or after the squash have stopped maturing in each day's reduced sunlight and warmth. Gardeners harvested the squashes for sorting and distribution then pulled up the vines, which went onto the garden waste...
What else is growing at the garden?
Planting Tomorrow’s Garlic
The garlic we planted in mid-November will be harvested in early autumn of the 2018 garden season. Gardeners here enjoy harvesting and eating most of the crops we plant during the season we planted them. Garlic is one of the crops we overwinter. In 2018, we'll be...
Compostville with Master Composters
If you haven't already heard, big changes are coming to Compostville. Once our trusty heavy equipment guy does some grading, leveling, and stump removal, the rebuild will get underway. But there's always plenty to do in Compostville. We had our first work party with...
Brussels sprouts from good to great
A light frost that would kill a tomato plant is only the beginning for Brussels sprouts. Brussels sprouts sweeten to deliciousness after a few hard frosts. We'll be harvesting Brussels sprouts here at the Garden at 485 Elm for as long as there are still buds on the...
Changes Coming in Compostville
The Garden at 485 Elm began composting food scraps and garden waste in 2014. In that first growing season, we cobbled together some pallets and threw everything in them. It wasn't hot composting, but we kept our food scraps and lawn waste to ourselves. Our first...
Fresh food at the end of October
Most of the work now is garden cleanup, but there's still plenty to harvest and eat. http://
Gardening in sweatshirts again
The afternoons are comfortable for garden work and there's still plenty to do. This season, our cucumbers flowered and grew delicious. In the late July heat, the leaves turned yellow. By mid-August, all were dead. A gardener speculated that the double boxes were...
Past peak, but still growing
Garden productivity has peaked for the season. Where once walls of tomato plants stood, there is open air and cleared beds just planted with cover crop seed. Food remains abundant, though not as varied. There's more planting to be done.
The garden continues apace in October
Someone asked me, "How was the garden this season?" "Wonderful!" I replied. "It still is." We are fall gardening, with the end of some crops and the beginning of others. The light is turning autumn colors, rich and golden. We savor the days, each one now noticeably...
Tomatillos, okra, and the promise of Brussels sprouts
We're past summer and the days are suddenly shorter. But we haven't had our first frost.
We’re “Wild for Pollinators”
The Garden at 485 Elm is part of the Vermont Community Garden Network's Wild for Pollinators initiative. It's a very serious matter for our food crops that native bees, including honeybees, are in trouble. Pollinator-welcoming habitat in every garden, yard,...
