Conelia Elsass shows some of the potatoes she harvested from the People’s Garden.
Courtesy photo
By Conelia Dixon
Contributing columnist
Well, we did not cut down the huge cottonwood tree at the back of the garden. We thought it was shading the garden too much and it should go. However, we just never got the funding, and it was too big to let it fall into the woods. Someone said that “maybe God did not want us to cut it down”. We did listen to that and instead, we watered and fertilized the crops, and it turns out that we have had the best season we could ask for. The weather was dry at first, but then the rain came regularly, filled up our 1,500-gallon tank and so we had plenty of sun and water.
Fall crops are planted now, and so we are still working to take even more produce into the Agape pantry. We have spinach, lettuce, snap peas, and some okra hanging on. Garlic will be planted in November for a July harvest. Garlic is amazing. When the cloves are planted about 6-8 inches down, they make it through the winter and start showing green in the spring. The clove turns into a bulb almost like magic filling in all around, with 6-8 or more cloves in the bulb. When the tops die back and turn brown in summer, we harvest the garlic bulbs and take them into the pantry to the shoppers.
In the fall we work repairing and building fencing, taking out spent vines, putting away tomato cages, trellises, still mowing and other jobs. We have had some amazing help with all this from adults and teens, and scouts as well. I love it when we have our children or grandchildren in the garden. They learn many skills and they also learn kindness because when they are included in all the garden jobs, they take food to the pantry and help hand it to the shoppers. We receive many thanks and smiles from the people in the pantry for fresh produce.
We usually have hundreds of hot peppers of different types. This year, we discovered that there was an infestation of cyclamen mites that made the peppers stunted and leathery looking. This caused us to be more vigilant about all the crops, monitoring closely and being careful about noticing diseases and insects.
Last year it was the army worms. We always are fighting the squash bugs, and have several methods for controlling them, however it is very difficult, and we must keep on it every day. Something that helps a lot with any insect problem is having bird houses to make sure we have birds to eat bugs. Note: we do not have bird feeders. We have no problems at all with tomato worms or Japanese beetles because we use companion planting, and we have birds. We have a bat house too, and we count on them to chow down on all bugs they want. If you have birdhouses that you are not using and can donate them to the garden, we will be very thankful. Some of ours have had to be taken down and we need some new ones. You can drop them off on the porch of The Learning Center at the garden, which is behind the Agape building.
If you like herbs and want to check out what we have…oregano, sage, basil, parsley, sometimes cilantro, chives, borage, and dill. Companion planting with herbs is an interesting study and I would suggest it for you. We have information on companion planting and other subjects regarding veggies. Next year we are going to try planting borage among the squash plants. A friend told me that it worked well for her. Other things can be used as companions too, like radishes with cucumbers.
We have a small amount of horseradish that we are going to try to make sauce with. I hear that if you plant it, it will keep coming up year after year in the same place, no matter what, so you must like where it is. I also hear from one of our new Master Gardeners that you should grind it up outside, because of the fumes. She said that they cried and cried.
We can use some help filing all the seeds in our seed boxes that we have received from hardware and supply stores. We keep them well organized. This is an inside job that you can sit and do. We offer seeds to the shoppers in the pantry and to others who come to the garden. Each year we give extra seeds to needy communities and many friends who volunteer.
We, at the People’s Garden offer to give talks to organizations, school classes, libraries, and other groups in the community, so if you are looking
for an interesting program for your group, give us a jingle (937 726 9525), and we will gladly provide information about vegetable gardening. We even have some yummy recipes you can try, like nasturtium chips! Gardening is becoming very popular, due to the economic state currently. People are finding that gardening is good for us, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, creatively, and financially, plus the food is good!
We have needs, besides the bird houses, we need a good truck load of soil to refill some garden beds, we can use Menards rebates, monetary donations, gift cards for Tractor Supply, Lowes, Menards, Ace Hardware, and other garden supply places. You can take donations to Agape at 209 Brooklyn or 802 Vandemark and earmark them for The People’s Garden. We need you, come to the garden and see how we work! We plan to have a class in the spring, possibly in April, to teach how we function and how to do things like plant seeds, build garden beds and fences, how to make compost, and all sorts of fun things. If you would like to volunteer at the garden but don’t know what to do, come to our class in the spring. Be watching for our articles each month in The Sidney Daily News. The number to call for any questions is 937-726-9525.
The writer is a Master Gardener and a coordinator of the People’s Garden. Reach her at 937-726-9525.
