Baby garlic

Our garlic's coming up! How exciting that we were able to save our garlic "seed" from last year's crop to continue growing these stinky and delicious bulbs at Drew-Freeman -- this time in a long, in-ground bed!

Last autumn, we planted 3 raised beds with local garlic. One thing we observed last spring was how much better the garlic grew in the bed that we mulched with burlap pieces, compared with the two other beds that we'd mulched with the traditional straw mulch. (There was also a LOT less weeding needed in the burlap-mulched beds, largely because I think the straw we'd gotten had lots of grass seeds mixed in.)

Students have been working on cutting and tearing up burlap sacks in recent weeks to create inexpensive, biodegradable mulch to protect these little bitty garlic plants growing in our free-form beds over the long, cold winter. As soon as these tiny guys are another few inches taller, we'll start laying down our burlap mulch....

Let me show you how to do that

Today, I was joined at the Windsor Crossings hoophouse by Mr. Damian (STEER Center's volunteer coordinator), Ms. Pierre, and a few students from Drew-Freeman to start planting our winter crops. We started by clearing out the hanging pots, loosening the soil while removing debris and old plants. Next, we planted a row of carrots and swiss chard in one of the long, in-ground beds. Finally, we started seeding some of the newly cleared hanging pots with heirloom lettuce seeds. Mmm, it'll be good to have fresh lettuce during the winter and early spring!

Tianna, and Nyjah were excellent farm apprentices, asking lots of good clarifying questions. While they're both new to gardening, they took to planting like ducks take to water: they dove right in! After meticulously planting and labeling half a dozen hanging pots with lettuce seeds, they were experts. (I hope so, since they'll be leading a larger group of students planting more varieties of lettuce and spinach in coming weeks.)

The days are so short this time of year, so we had to pack up earlier than we would have liked... but not before loading up the trunk of Ms. Pierre's car with more hanging pots for planting back at the school!

We've made our bed...

Today we finished building another free-form bed with burlap and compost. We're pretty much experts at this now.

Now, you might be able to tell how hard we're working here, but you might not know from this angle quite how cool -- nevermind how gigantic -- the bed is that we're building. How about from this perspective?

Pretty cool, no? It was the students who came up with the idea to build beds to spell out "D.F" (for Drew-Freeman, of course). Now, after days of trying out designs and moving soil, we need to decide what we want to plant in it....

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?

Moving some dirt around...

 

We've been busy this month, what with getting our free-form raised bed built and planted with garlic. Thanks to some new helping hands at Drew Freeman, we should be well stocked with garlic come warm weather!

Thanks, too, to STEER Center's new volunteer coordinator, Damian, for his help today getting our fourth raised bed filled with dirt and ready for fall planting.

Getting ready for cold weather

There's nothing like hauling around piles of compost and building raised garden beds to get the blood flowing on a sunny autumn day. Luckily, while Jessica was busy showing folks around the garden and snapping photos, Chris helped me lay out burlap and haul buckets of soil to start building the free-form raised bed which we'll be using to plant lots of local, organic garlic into next week.

You can't tell from the photo, since we hadn't started moving the compost yet, but we got quite dirty by the end, and once Nigel stopped by to help us out it was actually pretty fun. (Boy, did I sleep well after all of that manual labor!)

It wasn't all digging and hauling around buckets, though. When Ms. Pierre stopped by, we checked out the progress of the kale and strawberries, pulled up some of the overgrown radishes and weeds for the compost bin, and even dug up some of the beets and a single (giant) carrot from the round bed we'd planted in early summer. Yum!

Hope we can bring some more students out for our regular Tuesday workdays (1:30-3:30pm). I mean, we've got digging and planting to do. Plus somebody needs to make sure the strawberries are eaten before the frost. Yes, they're fruiting again!

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??