[By Jan Green]
November-a time for thanksgiving, and although there were challenges in the Garden this year (as every year), we can’t help but take a moment to stop and remember a few of our blessings along the way. We’re blessed to have many faithful volunteers that help tend to the Garden, various organizations that believe in our cause and support us financially, and a wonderful group of gardeners.
Another of those blessings was simply that this month has been more productive than expected. With temperatures in the upper 20°s and low 30°s at the end of October, most of the produce had been stripped.. We figured our growing season had come to an end, and it had, for the most part. Squash and cucumbers were hit hard and had to be removed. The tomato plants had mostly been stripped at the end of October and weren’t looking that great, so out they came as well. But those peppers just would not give up. They became our new garden heroes, now that the Armenian cucumbers were finished. The plants looked fairly decent, especially when you consider peppers are heat lovers. We continued to harvest throughout the month, although a a slower rate. The last pepper picking finally took place on the afternoon of November 26th, right before another cold front. By this time the plants were looking quite ragged, so we finally decided to put them out of their misery. The next day they were removed, and the garden now looked very bare and a little sad.
Throughout the month our most important work of the year has been ongoing. This is when we prepare the beds for next year’s harvest. Steps are now being taken to organically enrich the soil and also apply various methods to help reduce the nematode population. Compost has been added to all of the pantry beds, manure and elbon rye to many, and shrimp meal to a select few. This is a month-long process, but skip this step and we’d probably regret it next year.
Along with preparing garden beds for the upcoming growing season, we had a couple other tasks to complete as well. It was time to harvest our two sweet potato beds. This is usually an exciting time, to see what’s been hiding underground for the last several months. What a disappointment! For the first time since we’ve been growing sweet potatoes, we had very little production. We are rethinking this crop especially since it takes so long to grow, putting those beds out of production for months. But those vines sure are pretty while they’re growing and are actually edible as well.
Another task this month was to plant strawberries, even though it was later than previously planned. Most people think of planting strawberries in the spring, but due to our hot summer temperatures here in Texas, the preferred planting time is in the fall. That allows the plants time to grow and develop their root system all winter for a much larger harvest than would be possible if planted in the spring.
We’re now looking to next year. In January/ February we will be planting onions. This is typically a good crop for us since the cooler soil temperature (below 60°) causes the nematode to become inactive. Occasionally we will wander out to our one and only asparagus bed, looking for a few spears of asparagus peeking out of the ground, checking to see if it’s time to come up yet. Starting in March we hope to be sampling a few of those tasty strawberries that are now being planted. There’s organizing what seems like hundreds of cages, tidying up the monarch and hummingbird beds, organizing the seeds, and, and, and. There’s always SOMETHING to do at Brownwood Community Garden.