The Garden at 485 Elm
People growing together:
a collaborative community garden in Montpelier, Vermont

Gardening at the Solstice

The light looks like midday. But it’s nearly 7 p.m. and the light lingered for hours more.

We’re past planting and into replanting. In this bed, Catherine and Nathan are reseeding beets.

Hannah and Claire are thinning carrots and replanting them in spots where carrot seeds didn’t germinate.

Catherine and Lesley are reseeding greens beds where seeds didn’t germinate, and where this year’s copious flea beetle infestation decimated our mustard greens and other brassica.

Leo and Chris trimmed the tomato plants and gave them a thorough health examination. The tomatoes passed.

That’s me, Sheryl, pulling up flowering mizuma greens. They’re still delicious, but not for long. By the end of this week, we’ll pull them all up and replant this bed.

There’s a small perennial bed between the garden fence and the sidewalk on Elm Street. It’s the face of our garden the public sees first. Food crops take priority here, and most gardeners prefer to work on vegetables. Fortunately, Bonnie and a few other gardeners are tidying and beautifying this bed.