
Planting Garlic in 2023 to Harvest in 2024
Once Vermont is well into fall frosts, it's garlic planting time. Waiting until extended warm spells have ended ensures the garlic won't germinate and begin growing until spring. Flashback to midsummer: We harvested the garlic planted in 2022 and reserved hundreds of...
What else is growing at the garden?
River Discovery Walk Discoveries
On a beautiful late summer Saturday morning, naturalist and gardener at 485 Elm, Ned Swanberg, introduced us to flora, fauna, and the river itself. We heard bird calls, identified native, exotic, and invasive plants, and found connections between our watershed and the...
Feeding the community
According to Hunger Free Vermont: One in five Vermont children experiences hunger or food hardship. To help increase food security, Montpelier offers free community meals every day of the week. Every growing season, the Garden at 485 Elm contributes food to Central...
Fall Water Fest fills September
The festival runs until October 1. The organizers describe Fall Water Fest as: An exploration through music, the arts, poetry, and various outdoor explorations of the value and symbolism of water and of our need to protect it from pollution, privatization of the...
A big-deal work party
Food ready to eat is the most exciting. We planted more food to extend the season. And we moved something very large. ...
Video: Compostville Has Moved
"Not too shabby." That's what Hannah said at the end of this video, though you can't hear her. Hannah is right. Today Hannah, John, and Chris relocated Compostville. It's now away from our neighbor's fence and the Japanese knotweed infestation. The food scraps are in...
Join us for a River Discovery Walk
As part of Fall Water Fest (complete schedule below), at 9 a.m. on Saturday, September 17, we'll meet at the Garden at 485 Elm Street, and walk until approximately 11 a.m. We’ll look for late summer changes along the river. What is fruiting, flying, feeding? What...
Volunteers in the garden
These delicious ground cherries are volunteers from last year’s tomato beds. The ground cherries and other Solanaceae we planted this year in Bed 4 are still coming along.
Herb Walk at The Garden at 485 Elm
Update: On Thursday, August 18, 5:30-7 p.m., we enjoyed an herb walk with one of our community gardeners, Ella Malamud. Ella invited us into the bounty of medicine in our Garden and/or how to replace a trip to a drug store with a trip to the garden. Learn to...
Media moments in the garden
Barre-Montpelier Times Argus photographer Stefan Hard wrote and illustrated this story. Times Argus videographer David Smith added dimension with this video of gardeners in action. https://vimeo.com/175741141
Franken-Peas Found Here
Peas need picking daily in order to continue growing. The more we pick, the more peas will grow. In fact, if we don't pick them, the vines start to die. Why "Franken-Peas"? Because the peas we find deep inside the vines are usually huge to bursting. Depending on the...