Going into Fall

Red Okra blossom

As we begin to plan and prepare for fall we have much to harvest in the garden. The general consensus has been that while everyone seems to have been harvesting tomatoes for awhile now we are just beginning our harvest and we believe this to be due to planting so much by seed. We are also just beginning to fully see carrots, gourds, peppers and eggplant. Next year we'll start most seedlings inside a bit earlier. It's not an entirely bad thing to be reaping such a late harvest, but we do worry about any frost that might hit the tomatoes before they all ripen.

It's been a tremendously rewarding year for our garden and we've learned a lot so far.
We'll be working on expansion grants in the coming months. We hope to have a sign by next spring and maybe, hopefully, a fence of some sort.
For the moment we are enjoying the fruits of our labors.

Gateway Greening Urban Garden Contest 2008

On June 28th Gateway Greening held a Garden Tour of the community gardens they've been involved in. We went on the tour and got to see just a few of the gardens around St. Louis. Our garden was supposed to be the last on the tour but time was running short and we missed the gardens in Soulard as well as our own garden.
When the tour ended at the Missouri Botanical Gardens we were served lunch before the awards Ceremony.
Dr. Peter Raven presented the awards, there were many entries, and all the gardens have done such an amazing job, it was well deserved recognition.
Our very own garden won 1st Place in the New Garden Category.
It was so exciting to be a part of the tour and to receive such on honor from Gateway Greening and the Missouri Botanical Gardens.
As part of the award we were given a very nice black metal bench, various plants, and a reference book for gardening.
We will have pictures up soon of the summer garden growth. Stay tuned!

Green

We have been busy planting all of the vegetable beds the past month or so. The last bed was planted on Monday night with the seedlings that I had been growing at home.
Currently we are growing:
Carrots, onions, radishes, tons of tomatoes, beans, squashes, cucumbers, melons, gourds, eggplant, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces and greens, strawberries, garlic and a plethora of herbs.
Everything excluding the strawberries was started by seed and we've had really good luck so far. We've learned a lot already for next year as well.
The main project to work on now is building our compost site at the back of the lot and building the bean trellis. We've also put up trellis between the perennial and vegetable gardens and planted wisteria to grow on them.

Everything is growing so fast, the rain has been wonderful for all of the plants.
We'll post more pictures as things get bigger.

Bed Installation - Complete!

Yesterday we installed 10 raised vegetable beds in the garden.
We had so much help that we got all of the beds built and filled with soil before noon, which far exceeded our expectations.

We still have a small mountain of dirt that will be placed in the beds once the current soil has settled.
The plans for the vegetable beds will soon be finished.
We have made a lot of headway in less than a year and can't wait to get the veggies growing.
From this point forward we hope for the blog to become a garden diary of sorts, measuring successes and setbacks with planting.
Please check back frequently for progress and pictures.

Garden Workday

Grant Awarded

We were awarded a grant on February 23rd from Gateway Greening for 11 raised vegetable beds. The installation will begin in Mid-March. Please check back soon for more updates on our progress with the second phase of our garden.