Flower Power Team Gathers Steam
In addition to vegetables and herbs, the garden grows flowers in profusion. Gardeners love tending, harvesting, and taking home the beautiful blooms. The flower crop is worthy for its own sake. Flowers also make wonderful companion plantings with food crops. Marigolds...
What else is growing at the garden?
Winter Squash Harvest Before a Frost
Every September, gardeners keep an eye on the forecasted low temperatures. Protecting and harvesting frost-sensitive crops rises to the top of the to-do list. Winter squash comes out at frost time. The squashes can handle a bit of frost, but the vines die back, so the...
Cover Crops: A Long-Term Success Story
In August, a University of Vermont Service TREK Farm and Food team transformed the garden, digging in to turn a huge windrow, move compost, and pull copious weeds. One transformative act whose results were not visible that day was planting cover crop. Not long after...
Edamame Harvest
Edamame harvest! Gardeners pulled edamame bushes, stripped them, and divided the pods into shares to take home and eat. Some plants remain in the garden, where the pods' contents will mature and dry into seeds for next season's crop. Each bush's root area was clipped...
Top-Notch Team on a Perfect Day
On a dry, cool, sunny day, the UVM TREK Farm and Food team arrived with open hands and hearts—and a whole lot of skill—and transformed the garden. Though you'll usually find the garden's photo stories in chronological order, here is the TREK team after four hours of...
Harvesting Deliciousness: Potatoes and Onions
Back in May, gardeners planted potatoes and onions in several (and some creative) locations. In August, it was time to harvest them. The team dug potatoes and separated them from the plants. The potatoes were separated by variety in wheelbarrows. The plants went into...
Feeding and Seeding with the Garlic Harvest
As the garlic harvest work party began, rain fell steadily. Gardeners wondered whether many team members would be up for a very wet harvest. No worries. Gardeners turned out for one of the most fun and satisfying work parties of the season....
Families Plant Edamame on Father’s Day
We've been planting edamame for a few years here, but the 2023 planting has our attention. The seeds we planted this June were harvested here in 2023. Why didn't we use 2024's seeds? The plants gardeners cordoned off so the seed could dry on them must have had a...
The Many Steps of Potato Planting
Planting potatoes is fun and satisfying, producing a buried crop that sometimes pops out two or even three seasons later. Picking out potato seeds at Guy's Farm and Yard means choosing seed potatoes with eyes on two sides. This year's varieties are Yukon Gold, Russet...
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...
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...
