And That's a Wrap!

It's hard to believe Timber Rattler baseball ended almost a month a go already. It's also hard to believe the growing season is pretty much over. It sounds like we could see some temperatures at the freezing mark this weekend.

I headed down to the plot yesterday to gather up the remaining produce. There was a zuchinni that had gotten way too large, along with a few roma tomatoes and the last couple jalapeno peppers. It's surprising how quickly you can tear down something that took so much longer to get started.

I rallied up the troops this morning (Ann, Isaac & Brandon) to help tear out the garden. Lakeshore Cleaners, the landscape company who helped prepare the space for us, will be coming by next week to till everything under. It should be interesting to see how much better the soil will be at the start of next growing season...after have a lot more nutrients added in from the mulch and compost this year.

A BIG shout out to to everyone who contributed to this successful undertaking this year (sponsors/donators, green thumbs, grunt workers, etc.). I certainly couldn't have done it without you.

Below are a few photos of the tear-down today. Happy off-season!

Zucchini grows quickly?

Today is Wednesday and St. Joe's Food Program will be joining us prior to our home game this evening...along with our friends at WVBO.

So, I took a quick walk to the garden to gather up any produce that was ready. Quite a few more beans and tomatoes were ready for harvest. I pulled out the last of the kohlrabi. And the zucchini was out of control, really. Last week the large yellow blossoms only had tiny vegetables coming from them. Fast forward about 8 days and wah-lah, a rather large outcome. Maybe I just missed this one last week.

Salvation Army's Community Garden

So, when I dropped off the box of produce at the Salvation Army yesterday afternoon, a noticed a row of burlap sacks and some car tires along the fence lining the parking lot. The sacks were plump full (with dirt and compost I suppose) and had all sorts of different plants protruding from them.

The Community Garden Partnership has some great programming and established gardens in our area with a main purpose being to teach folks how to grow their own food, sustainably. They have several gardens in the area, but I wasn't aware of the Salvation Army location until yesterday.

I happened to have a camera in the car, so helped myself to a few photos. Robb Waugus, Development Director for the Salvation Army, probably grew curious as to why someone would be hanging out in the parking lot photographing the garden. He joined me outside for a brief chat about his garden... and mine.-

This is creative, space-saving gardening at its best...

Beans Galore!

Finally, after quite a stint of patience, we have green beans!

The pole bean vines have been slowly winding their way up the strings that form a tee-pee structure around the center pole. They had such a slow start that I wasn't sure we'd even get any results from the plants. But alas, they're here! They helped fill up another box of produce on its way to the Salvation Army this afternoon.

We're Rolling!

Today we went down to bring back our first sizable harvest. It has rained a lot this past week, so the mosquitoes are thick back there. We gathered tomatoes, kolrabi and a handful of radishes. Things look pretty good over all. The pole beans are almost reaching to the top of their structure. I also see another round of weeding in the near future.

The plan is to take this bunch to the Salvation Army tomorrow or Tuesday.

The First Fruit!

After kind reminders from several staff members that we have ripe fruit, I ventured out to the garden to harvest the first few tomatoes. I took in one of the big boy variety and four romas. They looked great...healthy, meaty and bright red!

On Wednesday home games, one of our radio partners, WVBO joins us out in front of the stadium prior to the game. A representative from St. Joe's Food Program joins them as well, encouraging fans to bring produce or non-perishable items to donate to the pantry. Those donating are then entered into a drawing for a Timber Rattlers autographed item that day.

Unfortunately we didn't play last night (it rained a little :-). Actually, as you may know, we had three major storms pass through in a seven hour period. So, I wasn't able to send the produce with St. Joe's. I'll be making a trip down there today to drop it off.

Progress...

A peek at how things are coming...

Almost-ripe Tomato

Kolrabi & Onions

Zuchinni