Harvest - Week of July 16
Community Garden Blog
To pick, you have to pull!
July 20, 2018
To pick, you have to pull. With our garden, we look at our statistics on food production and realize our production would be drastically decreased if we did not pull weeds. It’s great to see 400-500 eggplants or 210 sweet potatoes, but these production statistics are up because we keep the garden clear of weeds as much as possible, year after year. Once again I would like to thank our garden volunteers for all their help. If they didn’t pull weeds, we couldn’t pick the produce that we do. To pick, you have to pull.
Attached are two pictures from the harvest this week. Covering the chard has helped greatly with keeping the cabbage loopers out. The eggplant looks good and they may start producing next week. The production from the garden boxes is lower this year due to the lack of rain.
We are going to have harvests weekly starting next Wednesday, July 25. Join us in the garden at 7 a.m. if you are interested in helping! The next step is to start a fall garden probably the first week in August.
Don't forget our hospital and community garden will be represented at the Bellevue Farmer's Markets starting on August 2. The markets are from 3-7 p.m. every Thursday during the month. We will be distributing information on nutrition related diseases and doing cooking demonstrations. We hope to see you there!
Patti Keller, RD, LD, CDE
Harvest - Week of July 16
Flowering Begins!
July 11, 2018
The 2018 garden looks great! Now, if we just keep ahead of the weeds, the growing season will continue to be successful.
The sunflowers are flowering and will probably be in full bloom by the end of July. Several other plants are beginning to flower including the sweet potatoes, so we may have some fruiting starting soon.
Some onions will be harvested next week with the rest being used as large onions later in the fall. The baby chard is almost ready to be harvested as well.
I want to thank all of the volunteers who work so hard to keep the garden tended throughout the season. A large THANK YOU to Cat Valero for his near 40 hours of garden help so far this year. Another THANK YOU to Bob Beck who has rototilled between the rows of plants to keep the garden weed free.
Don't forget, next week The Bellevue Hospital will host Drown's Garden Market on July 18 from 9 am - 2 pm. The Garden Market is open to the public and will offer a wide variety of seasonal fruits and vegetables.
Please contact me if you have any questions, or are interested in getting involved with our Community Garden project.
Thanks, Patti Keller - 419.484.5421
Sunflowers beginning to bloom.
Sweet potato plants have started to flower
View of boxes in the garden
Herb Garden Update
June 28, 2018
Greetings!
A big thank-you to Julie Jarrett and Donna Allen for helping me bag the dill and chives from our herb garden for the Farmer’s market, Clyde food bank and Fish and Loaves food bank. Our herb production is off due to changes made in the gardens but we still bagged 134 bags of herbs yesterday!
I am finalizing the plans for the Bellevue Farmer’s Market demonstrations in August. This Farmer’s Market is on Thursdays from 3-7 p.m. On August 9 we will be demonstrating how to cook red cabbage and eggplant. On August 16 we will demonstrate "Healthy Eating to Delay Heart Disease and may feature carrots, green onions and garlic recipes. On August 23 we will demonstrate "Healthy Eating to Delay Diabetes" and may feature, green beans and peppers. The last Farmer's Market on August 30 will feature healthy eating tips that may help delay cancer and will feature recipes with chard, radishes, and lettuce. Information on these diseases will be available along with some food samples.
We have planted the remaining boxes and all but the carrots are up. I only hope the birds didn’t eat the carrot seeds. If you get a chance visit the garden and take a look! I think this is the best looking TBH Community Garden yet. Thank you to all the volunteers who make this possible year after year!
If you are interested in helping with the garden, please contact me at 419.484.5421.
Thanks, Patti Keller
Updated view of the Community Garden - June 27, 2018
Seeing Great Progress
June 25, 2018
The garden is starting to grow! Below are pictures of the plants in the lowlands to show our progress. With the sunflowers, look carefully because we have planted runner beans in between them and they are climbing up the sunflower. They are not as invasive as morning glories or the creeper plants in the boxes.
The strawberries are continuing to produce and have almost been spent. If we can keep the boxes watered, then the rest of the plants will start to emerge soon.
I'd like to send a big THANK YOU to Bob Beck for tilling between the rows. This is the first year we could go with wide row planting and it seems to be working out well. Also a big THANK YOU to Connie Meacham and Cat Valero for weeding parts of the garden.
If you get a chance, stop out and help with the weeding. We still have a lot of weeding that needs done between the garden rows. If you are able, it is good exercise and stress relieving.
That’s it for now. Enjoy the pictures!
Patti Keller, RD, LD, CDE
Cabbage
Eggplant
Sweet Potato
Sunflower plant with runner beans
Already Harvesting Produce!
June 15, 2018
Hello,
The plants in the garden are taking off! And so are the weeds! A lot of weeding needs to be done between the plants this week.
We still have some open areas to plant and I hope to get the rest of the planting done Sunday evening before the rain comes. A special thanks to TBH Plant Operations staff member Nina Schueren for all her help watering the boxes and the culinary garden.
TBH Nutritional Services staff Kelly Reid and Tracey Nason have worked hard to plant the culinary garden this year and it is also starting to produce. The food from this garden is used in special recipes we offer in the The Bellevue Hospital's Main Station Cafe, giving us an opportunity to learn new ways to prepare certain vegetables.
Once the strawberries have stopped producing, we will need to thin out a couple of the boxes. If anyone has experience with this, please let me know so I can learn more about thinning these plants.
To date we have harvested about 7 lbs. of strawberries, 24 lbs. of free willy lettuce, and 1.89 lbs. of chives.
If you are interested in helping with our gardens this year, contact me at 419.484.5421.
Patti Keller, RD, LD, CDE
Green onions sprouting
Radish plants
Garden Awakens From Winter Slumber
April 11, 2018
It’s that time again! The 2018 growing season has begun.
We had our first meeting for the community gardens on Monday and had a great turn out. Things are rolling along and the garden is beginning to wake from a long winter. Some plants like the rhubarb, spinach, chives and strawberries are starting to poke up. The weeds are making a presence already, also.
This year, we will have nine of the raised boxes dedicated to strawberries and seven boxes will be salad vegetables. We are retiring the cucurbits (cukes and squash) in 2018 due to increased infestations. We might be retiring the cole vegetables (cabbage, radishes, broccoli) next year if infestation becomes a problem this year. While this is a different type of crop rotation, it may work better than moving the plants around in a small area.
Every year I grow an experimental plant (some examples from the past have been okra, sweet potatoes, and quinoa). This year we are going to try horseradish in the square foot box. If it goes well, it will be transferred to the herb box and grown as a herb.
I am looking forward to a great year for the community gardens! We are also looking for volunteers to help us with our gardens! If you are interested, please contact me at 419.484.5421.
Patti Keller, RD, LD, CDE
Spinach has begun to pop up.
Plants awakening from a long winter.
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