Sweet potatoes: a huge success!

You may not be able to tell from this photo, but this sweet potato -- dug up just yesterday alongside the Windsor Crossing hoop house -- is about the size of my thigh:

 

And I'll be darned if it wasn't delicious chopped up into my lentil soup for dinner. Can you believe that it grew from this little bitty thing we transplanted last May?

Hoop, there it is!

Last week, I visited the hoop house at Windsor Crossing. Mr. Sanders had called to tell me that the plants were doing well, that I should come by and see it, that he was proud of the way the plants were flourishing. What he did not mention was that the plants were GOING BONKERS!

It was a veritable JUNGLE of tomato plants in there. Squash, tomatillos, cucumbers, chard, peppers. Even a few okra. Let me tell you, with some good soil, steady watering, and a little TLC, these plants were BURSTING with produce. We harvested a few large bowls of tomatoes and squash and cukes and brought them to Ms. Jacobs' office for her to distribute to the residents in the surrounding community. But Mr. Sanders and I agreed that those tomato plants needed a little more... guidance.

So I stopped by the hardware store for some strong twine, we borrowed a ladder, and returned -- along with Rodney (our other loyal garden helper, who it turns out loves growing things so much he's helping nearby Suitland Elementary start a school garden as well) and Jessica -- and yesterday we set to staking up the tomatoes.

It was hot and muddy work, but in the end, I think our plants will thrive. (My pants and shoes, on the other hand, might be goners.) Boy, oh, boy, we're going to have a LOT of ripe tomatoes soon!

Anyone for salsa??

Plant guardians

Thank you to Mr. Sanders for keeping an eye on our plants at Drew-Freeman and Windsor Crossing over the summer holiday! Looking forward to seeing the tomatoes flourish. And the peppers and squash and peanuts and lettuce and spinach and... wow, that's a lot of plants. Good thing he has lots of garden experience! Our little seedlings are in friendly, capable hands.

And if he needs a little backup, we've got the boyscouts (who helped us to build and then install irrigation in our hoop house):

They were definitely concerned about area hoodlums "messing with our plants after all of that hard work!" They may be kind and helpful, but you don't want to mess with the boyscouts....

Adventures with irrigation

This week's class meeting was a rainy one, but boy did we get a LOT done.

Before class, I met with Vinnie, who'd come down from Baltimore to help us install an irrigation system in the hoop house he helped us build earlier this year. We talked through the tasks that students would be helping with, including installing drip tape for both in-ground beds and hanging pots.

I then made my way to Drew, where the Eco-Friendly group paused to check out our productive strawberry plants, harvesting some beautiful berries as a quick snack before traveling to the Windsor Crossing hoop house.

The juicy strawberries were gobbled up in about 2.5 seconds, but don't worry, there will be more... especially for those students and teachers who make their way to the Drew-Freeman garden over the summer break to help with weeding and using the rain barrels to water plants until school begins in the fall. (Just putting the idea out there.) Speaking of watering plants....

The boyscouts who had helped us build the hoop house back in October came by to assist us again: this time with the installation of drip tape, to keep our plants well watered during the hot summer months.

 

While some Drew students installed the irrigation system inside the hoop house, we had some planting to do outside! We had to use 5-gallon buckets to move a huge pile of soil from Ms. Jessica's truck to build a raised bed along one side of the hoop house. (Curious that I don't have photos of us hauling around buckets of dirt, but I guess I was busy lugging buckets back and forth.) Once we'd constructed our bed out of soil and burlap, we got to planting sweet potato slips about a foot apart, each with a spoonful of rabbit manure -- a natural fertilizer that sweet potatoes love. Oooh, those tubers are going to be delicious in the fall!

Once the irrigation team finished up inside, we began to transplant some of the seedlings that Farmer Gail sent along for us to start growing ingredients for the salsa we'll be making with the Entrepreneurs Club in the fall. A number of different heirloom tomato varieties and tomatillos, to be precise. We also had some hot -- and I mean HOT -- pepper plants donated by Kid Power! It was nice to be inside the hoop house planting, since it started to rain while we were outside moving soil around....

The students and adults worked well together. I mean, look at the meticulous spacing of those transplants:

Since we'd been so busy this class, we didn't have a chance to cook like usual. We finished up our meeting with a snack that I'd made: spinach and strawberry salad + black bean burritos and fresh tomato salsa. Not a bad way to end a day, and we made it home safely before the rain REALLY started coming down.