October has been a beautiful month with less time in the garden but plenty to harvest. We have almost finished planting a winter wheat cover crop on the upper part of the squash side of the garden, just in time for rains to turn it a gorgeous emerald green. We moved a lot of plants into winter beds at the end of September with the help of Theta Delta Chi fraternity from Union College. Union's October 18th service day was well-timed to help with the work of closing up the garden. They did final harvesting except for the winter beds, pulling out stakes and strings, moving some plants, and getting it ready for Rennie to till at the end of the day. We also had a crew that dug out tons of raspberry bushes from someone's overgrown backyard. Howie brought them over to the Vale and another crew planted them. We now have a 300 foot long bed of raspberry bushes! THANKS GO OUT TO THE UNION COLLEGE VOLUNTEERS ! ! !!
(If anyone has more photos, please send them to us! We don't have anything so far that show the incredible work that
went on to dig out the raspberry bushes, and would love more pictures of any part of the day.)
What's left in the garden? Six winter beds. We actually had a light frost the day after everyone worked so hard. The only sign of it were a few wilted & drooping leaves on the nasturtium plants, but the signs were obvious. It's been warm since, so plants are pretty happy over there for now.
Plants that will take a light frost:
Swiss chard, Asian greens, mustard greens, arugula, broccoli, chives
Plants that take a hard frost:
kale & collards, Brussel sprouts
We have been saving some seeds, talking about what went well this year and what didn't, thinking about how to plan next year. Everyone is disheartened by the sporadic vandalism and theft of produce, which seriously intensified during the past month. But we all really love gardening in this peaceful, beautiful place, and are looking forward to an even better year next spring. After a chance to rest up and catch up on other things, that is!
(If anyone has more photos, please send them to us! We don't have anything so far that show the incredible work that
went on to dig out the raspberry bushes, and would love more pictures of any part of the day.)
What's left in the garden? Six winter beds. We actually had a light frost the day after everyone worked so hard. The only sign of it were a few wilted & drooping leaves on the nasturtium plants, but the signs were obvious. It's been warm since, so plants are pretty happy over there for now.
Plants that will take a light frost:
Swiss chard, Asian greens, mustard greens, arugula, broccoli, chives
Plants that take a hard frost:
kale & collards, Brussel sprouts
We have been saving some seeds, talking about what went well this year and what didn't, thinking about how to plan next year. Everyone is disheartened by the sporadic vandalism and theft of produce, which seriously intensified during the past month. But we all really love gardening in this peaceful, beautiful place, and are looking forward to an even better year next spring. After a chance to rest up and catch up on other things, that is!