Community Garden: Best time for the garden

It is finally done!  The Community Garden is in and going strong.  The tomato plants and pepper plants and okra seeds and yellow crooked neck squash seeds and green zucchini seeds and cucumber seeds are all in the ground and those seeds should be breaking through the soil by the time you read this. 

That is probably the best time of the garden!  The time when all the young plants are breaking through and you look down the row and you see all those little green sprouts sticking up.  It is really great to watch that new growth.  At this point you can’t tell what they are because they all look the same.  Have you ever noticed that?

You have to wait for the leaves to form to know what you have if you didn’t mark the row.  This year we have a group that is going to be spending some time in the garden and they will have some large container gardens.  We will start with three containers and then get some more as soon as we can.  They will be more fun and less work than a regular garden bed.  You don’t have to bend over so far or get on your knees to do the work necessary to keep the plants healthy.  I hope they enjoy the container gardening.

We have another group that has a raised bed garden but they are also going to try some container gardening.  I have two containers to start them off with and then some more later on.  So with everything planted you need to mark your calendars for about sixty days and then we will be harvesting the first of the vegetables.  Lots of work but remember that if you come down and pull some weeds or grass you can pick some vegetables and take them home with you.  Some of those four by eight garden beds look really good.  Lots of good stuff already growing in them and the butterfly garden and the bird aviary are really getting full of good stuff this year.

The butterflies should be back real soon and there are always a lot of them in the early mornings at the garden.  The one garden bed that has strawberries and the other plants arranged in the form of the number 72 is loaded with red, good-looking strawberries.  That entire bed is packed with plants and they are all getting big.  These are all perennials and they come back every year and they look better every year.

I almost forgot; they put up some wire fences to allow the cucumbers something to climb on so they will grow even better.  Have you ever wondered about letting the vines grow up on something?  It makes it easier for the critters to get to them without having to bend over to eat.  Makes the vegetables sweeter when they hang in the air!  It also keeps the turtles away from some of the good stuff if it is up in the air.