July 11, 2024 – Bed prep and mulching
July 18, 2024 – Early weeding and first harvest
August 1, 2024 – Surprisingly dry beds, more harvest & Misty’s Cream of Broccoli Soup recipe
August 8, 2024 – Staking tomatoes, beans & Summer Succotash recipe
August 13, 2024 – Strawberry plant care, heavy harvest, & Baked Eggplant Parmesan Rounds recipe
August 20, 2024
August 22, 2024 – Pollinator garden clean out, Panzanella Salad recipe
August 27, 2024 – Soil testing and planning for perennials, Maple Glazed Root Vegetable recipe
September 3, 2024 – Water water water! And Dilly Bean recipe
September 14, 2024 – Planted perennials for our pollinator garden with consideration for our bloom calendar
September 21, 2024 – Garden bounty and clean up, Tomato Pie recipe
October 29, 2024 – That’s a wrap! Putting the gardens to bed
July 11, 2024
Welcome to the brand new Orwell Community Learning Garden! We have been working behind the scenes to get the garden of raised beds planted and up and running before beginning the community service portion of our summer gardening series.
We started preparing these beds in April. The beds were already in existence from the Orwell Village School Gardening Club, and we will have the help of Ms. Valley, first grade teacher at the OVS when school starts back up in August. We received donated beautiful compost from the Lazy Dog Farm here in Orwell, to amend the organic material that had been sitting in the beds for the past few years.
At the end of May, a few things were planted–eggplant, a few tomatoes, beans, carrots, broccoli, summer squash, and onions, thanks to donations from Singing Cedars Farmstead in Orwell. In mid and later June, I weeded the beds, and planted more seedlings, including both sweet and hot peppers, scallions, celery, winter squash, cauliflower, watermelon, lots of kale, sage (a beautiful tri-color variety!), rosemary, more broccoli, and more tomatoes. Thank you to both Golden Russet Farm in Shoreham, and Virgil and Constance Home and Garden in Brandon for generous donations of plants, as well.
Last week, I mulched the beds with hay donated from the Lazy Dog Farm to help prevent excess weed growth, as well as to help prevent their drying out. Raised beds will dry out much faster than traditional in-ground beds, so to help conserve resources, keep the plants more uniformly damp (extremes of desiccation or too much water will put too much stress on a plant making them more susceptible to diseases, pests, and early death), and to conserve man hours of watering, mulching is very important. Mulching can be done in a variety of ways—we can discuss these at one of the weekly education sessions!
Today, 7/11, I did some spot weeding (although there were almost none since the weeding and mulching last week!), planted the last of the seeds—carrots and beets. Unfortunately, the previously carrots were so heavily weed infested, that with weeding, many of the seedlings were sacrificed. This illustrates the need to keep weeds under control, in whatever way works best for you. (I have a handout with the most common weeds we see here in VT). I also tied up the tomato plants as best that I could. These plants are so healthy, but there are multiple branches that were interwoven with the neighboring plants, making it a little hard to separate them—again, another illustration of some of the reasons why we do things like “tie up” tomato plants. I am happy to discuss some of the reasons why this can be helpful in your gardens.
Sadly, a deluge of rain had me leaving the gardens after only an hour, but we will be at the Learning Garden every Thursday, from 10am to approximately noon, working in the beds, maintaining them, answering questions from the public, and harvesting produce. Please join us during this time, or if you have a few minutes to peruse the gardens during the week, feel free. The harvest is open to anyone, and indeed, we alone cannot maintain these gardens, and welcome your help! If you are unsure if something is ripe, or ready to be picked, feel free to ask. There are some fruits/veggies that will continue to ripen after they are picked, and some that will not. This is another topic that we can discuss during our Thursday morning sessions.
Our goals in creating the Orwell Community Learning Garden are to educate, help people understand the path of food from the ground to our homes and tables, get more people gardening, and help decrease food insecurity in our communities.
Happy Gardening!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
7/18/2024
Today is our official second week of community learning! This week I was only there for a short time, as my family and I are headed to Ireland for the next 11 days. Kate Hunter, Librarian of the Orwell Free Library, will be at the garden next Thursday in my absence, and then I will resume Thursdays at 10 am for the remainder of the summer.
I was happy to see the bounty of veggies today, and especially happy with the rain, as it has meant less manual watering. Thank you to the First Congregational Church of Orwell for allowing us to utilize their water/hose this summer. I can’t express how grateful I am not to have to carry watering cans back and forth from the spigot at OVS! Things that are ready to pick are
broccoli, an eggplant, cherry tomatoes, banana peppers, and in 1-2 days, summer squash. The watermelon is also looking good, happy on its bed of hay. I did the very little weeding that needed to be done, thanks to the mulching a few weeks ago.
The seeds that were planted last week have sprouted–carrots, beets, turnips—turnips were a new addition that I snuck in there on Thursday evening during the first Orwell Town Band Concert. (Please join them for the next 3 Thursdays for a wonderful concert with local musicians of all ages!). As we are deciding what vegetables to include in our raised beds here, I wanted to
include some plants that would produce all summer long, to provide food, and a fun treat to community members that could stop by, but I also wanted there to be some vegetables that could “set” all summer, for a fall harvest. Root crops are wonderful for planting and then leaving alone. When the new shoots emerge from the soil, they are very susceptible to insect feeding, and often are in danger of being plucked out with early weeding (see last week’s post). It is best to mulch around these plants, then leave them be until they are big enough to clearly see what is vegetable, and what might be a weed. (Please see the handouts in our new weather-proof handout holder. This week’s shows some common weeds in our area.) If you are having trouble with insects, and find the shoots are being eaten as fast as they emerge, I would recommend exclusion netting. This can be accomplished with different types of fabrics with varying sizes of “holes”. For this purpose, very fine mesh would work best—it is lightweight and will not crush the new growth, while still allowing light through for continued plant growth. Exclusion netting is one part of the IPM (Integrated Pest Management) pyramid that we can use to minimize pesticide application our gardens. Practices like exclusion netting and hand picking insects off our plants
are just two of the more common parts of the IPM pyramid that are safest for plants and people.
I will delve into some more of this pyramid in the weeks to come, showing how we can be mindful of not only the safety of what we choose to consume, but also for saving our beneficial insects—the pollinators!
Ok, I went on a little sideshoot there. To get back to the root vegetables—these veggies are happy to sit undisturbed all summer, and hopefully, can be picked in the fall by the OVS Gardening Club, and utilized in the cafeteria, or taken home for children to eat with their families. I hope this garden will introduce children to some new veggies that they did not know they liked!
See you in 2 weeks!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Garden Intern
7/26/2024
The Orwell Free Library Story Time crew attended to the garden today. We read books about gardening and vegetables next to the Learning Garden then went on a hunt for treats among the leaves. None of the participants (3 families) gardened so it felt like a true adventure with treasures at the end. The children gathered broccoli, cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes to take home.
Kate Hunter
Librarian
August 1, 2024
Welcome to August in the Orwell Community Learning Garden! Things are heating up, growing (plants and weeds!), outgrowing the beds and spilling into the in between walkways, and we are seeing an increase in harvestable veggies. It has been two weeks since the beds have been weeded, and while there were some, it was not overwhelming, and easily accomplished, thanks to the mulching.
Interestingly, the beds were fairly dry, even with the heavy rainfall earlier in the week. The reason for this is likely twofold: raised beds are more shallow, with more porous soil than traditional “ground”, and the rain washes through them more quickly; and, the root systems from the plants that are in the raised beds (and yes, they are planted with too many plants for the size of the beds—that is always a hazard, I always crowd plantings and overestimate what they can hold!) are filling up the entire bed, and the plants are utilizing the water as fast as they can. This is another good lesson—PROPER SPACING is
very important. When we plant those small seedlings, or seeds, we must account for the mature size of the plant. This is not only important for water and nutrient absorption from the soil, but for air flow. Proper air flow allows for sunlight to get where it needs to be for photosynthesis and growth of the
plant; it prevents excess moisture buildup on the leaves to prevent some diseases such as molds and fungi that thrive in wet conditions; and it helps prevent the spread of pests and bacterial diseases from plant to plant contact. Alas, this is an area where I will strive to do better next year, especially in these raised beds.
Today, after weeding, I harvested cucumbers, eggplants, both hot and sweet peppers, summer squash, broccoli, kale, and many cherry tomatoes. Please come by the OFL and help yourself while they are fresh! I was happy to see that multiple stalks of broccoli had been harvested, as well as some
eggplants—this is wonderful, and the purpose of our Community Garden!
One other area that I noted will need attention in the future is further tomato staking. The bamboo stakes that I used initially are not strong enough. This is ultimately good news, as it means that are tomato plants are very healthy, growing both in stature, as well as producing fruit. I will plan to bring
metal stakes next week to provide additional support to these plants. Remember, tying these up will help with the air flow, help prevent disease, and will make it easier to harvest those tomatoes!
Looking into the forecast, there is not much rain predicted, so I will plan to water once again over the weekend. If anyone is interested in helping us water, please let me know, or ask Kate at the Library, and we can get you set up!
As a new, fun addition, I will be sharing a delicious recipe featuring one or more of the harvested produce for everyone to try. Please see below.
See you next Thursday, August 8th, 10 am—happy gardening!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 EMG Intern
Misty’s Cream of Broccoli Soup (a very quick recipe, easy to prepare after work in 30 minutes!)
Ingredients:
1 ½ lb chopped broccoli, discard tough stems 2 ½ cups chicken or vegetable broth
2 cups water ½ tsp salt
1 stalk celery, chopped ½ cup heavy cream, half and half, or
milk
1 medium onion, chopped pepper and dash ground nutmeg, to taste
2 Tbs butter shredded cheddar cheese, and cooked,
chopped bacon for sprinkling
Directions:
- Heat 2 cups of water to boiling. Add broccoli, celery, and onion. Cover and boil 10 min, or until
softened. - Place all ingredients into heat safe blender, or use immersion blender–blend until smooth
consistency. - In original pot, heat butter until melted. Add flour and stir until mixture is browned, bubbly, and
smooth. - Stir in chicken broth. Heat to boiling, and cook for 1 minute.
- Stir in vegetable mixture, salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Heat until just boiling.
- Stir in heavy cream, half and half, or milk, and heat until hot, but not boiling.
- Serve with cheese, bacon bits, croutons, or whatever you fancy!
August 8, 2024
Today was a day where both Kate and I were there for open hours and garden maintenance. We both did some weeding, both around the beds, as well as in the beds (although this is still minimal, thanks again to mulching!). The crew who maintains the OVS grounds are truly helpful to us, weed whacking around the beds, while being really mindful of the veggies that are spilling over. Thank you very much!
I brought in much more substantial stakes, green metal, 6’, to help the tomato plants be more stable, and separated. Trying to do this after some of the plants are entwined is truly a lesson in why it should be done BEFORE the plants become unwieldy. However, it is still a help now, especially for harvesting, getting to all the beautiful, ripe, sweet, cherry tomatoes.
I also began to tackle the raised bed that is filled to the brim (and overflowing) with healthy strawberry plants. While I did find one or two ripe strawberries, I am fairly confident that these are “June bearing” strawberry plants. There are no other flowers visible, where I would expect some if these were “everbearing” or “day neutral” strawberry plants. However, I will be able to tell for certain by the end of August—if there are flowers present starting late in late August and September, this is the indication that they are not reliant on day length to set a crop. Thus the “day neutral” title. The “June bearers” are “short day” plants; this means that the roots and flower buds are initiated in the short days of the fall, and will be stimulated to bear fruit after the dormancy of winter. They will supply only one crop of fruit, in mid to late June in our area. The day neutral strawberries will set three crops: June, a small crop in mid-summer, and a larger crop in late August to frost. This raised bed of strawberries is really too full, and I will be thinning the plants each week as I clean out that bed. Either come by while I am there to get some strawberry plants for your home, or let Kate or I know that you are interested, and I will set them aside at the library. This timing is fine for planting, as long as they are established by frost.
I am a little stumped by the bean plants that were planted by the OVS Garden Club in the farthest raised bed. They are pole beans/climbers, and are VERY tall, but have yet to set any beans. There are some flowers, so I will continue to monitor for produce. They are sharing the trellises with the cucumbers, and both plants appear to be thriving with very green, beautiful growth.
Today I harvested eggplants, kale, cucumbers, broccoli, cherry tomatoes, Green Zebra tomatoes, as well as clippings from our rosemary, and tricolored sage. Produce is available at the Orwell Free Library, first come, first served! In addition, please stop by throughout the week to harvest on your own anything that is ready.
Next week, I will be at the Community Garden on Tuesday, 8/13/24, at 10 am, instead of Thursday. Please see below for this week’s tasty recipe, featuring the herb, sage. This recipe is a tried and true one that I make often in the summer.
Happy Gardening!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
Summer Succotash, from Martha Stewart Living Magazine
Ingredients:
1/2 cup unsalted butter 2 red bell peppers, diced 2 zucchini, diced
1 medium onion, diced 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped 2 summer squash, diced
1 cup lima beans (drained) 1 cup corn
salt/pepper, to taste
2 Tbs fresh SAGE, coarse chopped
Directions:
- In a large skillet, over high heat, melt butter. Add onion and cook until translucent.
- Add garlic, and all the remaining vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.
- Cook, stirring intermittently, until vegetables are tender.
- Add sage, stir, and simmer 1-2 minutes.
- Serve over rice, or as a vegetable side dish. Enjoy!
August 13, 2024
Today was another beautiful day here in Orwell, perfect for working in the garden beds. There has been a good amount of recent rainfall, so no watering was necessary today. Very little weeding was needed, so I was able to get right down to business harvesting, and continue tackling the strawberry bed.
The harvest today included summer squash, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, a green zebra tomato, one hot pepper, and multiple beautiful eggplants. These two spectacular eggplant plants came from Singing Cedars Farmstead, and are truly thriving—they clearly love the conditions in our garden bed, and are approximately 5 feet tall, and about 3-4 feet wide. I picked only 3 large fruit today, but there are at least 10 or more almost ready, and more to come. Please come by the library to take home some of the veggies in the next day or two, before they are all gone! Of course, throughout the week, feel free to stop by and harvest on your own–there will be more summer squash, cukes, eggplant, and tomatoes ready every day, likely. The tomatoes were so much easier to pick today after the updated staking last week.
Today I focused on continuing weeding and thinning the plants in the strawberry bed. I am about halfway done, as it is slow work picking through all the plants and the runners they have put out. I am thinning the plants to one every 3-4” and selecting new runner plants. Ideally this would have been done directly after harvest in June, so the plants could have the best growing conditions during the summer. This canopy of new leaves and growth will determine the quality of the flower buds, and thus the fruit, during the following spring. However, because I am unsure of the type of strawberry plants that we have growing here, I am not being as aggressive as I might be if I knew these were June bearers. In addition, the original “mother” plant should be culled after 4 years, to keep them producing to the fullest. Strawberries are one of the many plants that benefit from heavy mulching in the fall, with straw working the best. We have leftover straw/hay mulch from the Lazy Dog Farm which I will use this fall to put this bed “to sleep” for the winter. Today I potted up 21 strawberry plants that I will keep watch over, (plan to have more after next week) and then have them up for grabs in the weeks to come, available at the OFL.
Next week I plan to be at the garden both Tuesday (8/20) and Thursday (8/22), from 10am to 11am, when I hope to finish up on the strawberry bed, and begin work on the native pollinator bed that is outgrowing its space.
Today’s recipe will feature our highly prolific eggplant—enjoy!
See you next week, Tuesday and Thursday, 10 am, and happy gardening!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 EMG Intern
Baked Eggplant Parmesan Rounds
Ingredients:
1 large eggplant, cut into ¼ to ½” thick rounds 2 eggs, beaten
2 tsp salt 1 Tbs vegetable oil
2 cups breadcrumbs, panko or traditional 2 cups marinara sauce
½ cup parmesan cheese 1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 tsp Italian seasoning 3 Tbs fresh basil, chopped
1 cup flour
Directions:
- Before you cut up the eggplant, some prefer to peel the skin, but I prefer to leave it on. If the eggplants are not overgrown, the skin should not be too tough.
- Place the rounds in a single layer, sprinkle with salt, and allow to sit for 30 minutes. This allows the bitter and excess juice to drain. Pat them dry and transfer to baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Combine breadcrumbs with parmesan cheese, and Italian seasoning.
- Place the flour, beaten eggs, and breadcrumbs into 3 separate bowls—bowls should be shallow, for ease of dipping.
- Dredge each slice of eggplant in the flour, tapping to remove excess, then egg, also letting the excess drip off. Finally, coat with the breadcrumb mixture. Brush or spray both sides with small amount of vegetable oil.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until golden brown, flipping halfway through baking time.
- Remove from oven, top each round with tablespoon of marinara sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Return to oven for additional 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted and browned.
- Sprinkle with chopped basil before serving. Serve with additional marinara sauce for dipping, if desired.
August 20, 2024
Thank you to the community member who came to the open hours on Tuesday! I’m so glad the word is getting out there. It was nice to have some help weeding the strawberry bed, and to begin to evaluate the native pollinator bed. The strawberry bed is done, finally, and we have 45 new plants to share with you. They have been potted up, and I’m letting them get adjusted for a bit, and then they will be at the OFL, free for the taking! Since there are still no flowers to be seen, I think these are a June bearing variety. This means that they will set flowers based on the dormancy of winter, and planting these in the fall will hopefully give at least a small crop next year, and an even better one the following year. Plan to pick these up either the first week of September, or at the Food and Harvest Fest on September 8, 12-4 pm on the Orwell Town Green. (Come also for the great food, Orwell vendors, and horse drawn carriage rides!)
Today, we harvested cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, broccoli, kale, a hot pepper, the first of the beets and turnips, scallions, and celery. What a bounty!
Next, I began to evaluate the native pollinator bed. This bed started a number of years ago, through the OVS Gardening Club, led by yours truly, with plants donated by Vermont Wetland Plant Supply, from right here in Orwell. Not surprisingly, these native plants have thrived, but it has become basically filled with two types of plants—New York aster (Symphotrichum novi-belgii), and with a non-native mint, Mentha longifolia, also known as horse mint. (NOTE—this non-native mint was not supplied by Vermont Wetland Plant Supply, and I am unsure if this was planted on purpose, or came in with something else.) There is also swamp milkweed, (Asclepius incarnta ), which is a great native pollinator plant, but it is being crowded out by the aster. The first job will be to clean out the non-native mint—this will be a big job, as they spread by long runners underground, and are very hard to get rid of fully. This will definitely be a project for another day. In the meantime, I will begin to think about what species to plant in this bed. (Please see our garden friend from this week (photo below) —she is truly beautiful!)
I will be back this week again on Thursday, 8/22/2024, from 10 am onward, and then again for a final weekday open hour on Tuesday, 8/27/24, at 10 am. After this, school will be in session, and the new open hours will be on Saturday mornings at 10:30 am, at least through September. Hope to see you there!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
August 22, 2024
Today was the big day for cleaning out the native pollinator bed. It took approximately 2 hours to remove all the horse mint, including the roots that were growing through the raised bed seams and into the surrounding sod. I know that they are not all gone, and will be vigilant through the fall and next year to keep weeding them as I see them pop up. I left the aster in completely, for now, as this is a fall bloomer (see the few beautiful purple blooms that are just beginning), and it is an important food source for our pollinators late in the season, as many of the other blooming perennials are waning. The swamp milkweed is also blooming right now (the orange flowers), and I left that in, as well.
For pollinator beds, there are a number of criteria that you want to take into consideration. Finding food (either nectar or pollen) is the number one reason for pollinators to visit flowers. (And by “pollinators”, we mean bees, wasps, flies, beetles, birds, including hummingbirds, butterflies, bats, and ants.) It is important to try to provide food (ie, flowers) for the entire season, from May through October—this means there should be variety in your plantings where there will be blooms out this whole time. For pollinators, it is good to have a “clump” or “swaths” of flowers together of the same type, but you also need variety for the extended bloom time. If you have limited space, it is better to provide diversity over quantity. To make it easiest, think of the growing season in terms of early summer, mid-summer, and late summer. You also want to provide a variety in height, color, and type of flower, to attract different types of pollinators.
For our bed that currently is only approximately 4’ x 8’, we are limited greatly by space. However, I am hoping that we can increase this space by a large amount in the years to come, and become a part of the “Pollinator Pathway” across the US, and beyond (www.pollinator-pathway.org). I will write much more about this plan, and pollinator plants in the weeks to come, as this is a true work in progress.
Today I harvested cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and eggplants. I also have been watching our watermelons, and logging their (very slow) growth. Sadly, one of the two succumbed to a pest, but the other is healthy and still growing.
As I mentioned in the previous post, our final weekday open hours will be on Tuesday, 8/27/24, at 10 am. After this, school will be in session, and the new open hours will be on Saturday mornings at 10:30 am, at least through September.
Please see below for this week’s recipe, Panzanella Salad, which uses lots of cucumbers and tomatoes, so it is perfect for this time of year, and is such a great side dish. Enjoy!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
Panzanella Salad
**Note—this recipe requires toasted bread, as well as sitting after it is all mixed for at least an hour, so take that into consideration prior to preparation.
Ingredients:
Crusty bread, 1 loaf 6 tomatoes, diced
½ onion, chopped 1 (or more) cucumbers, diced
¼ cup olive oil, plus more for toasting bread 1 Tbs red wine vinegar
Salt/pepper, to taste fresh basil leaves, shredded or chopped
Parmesan cheese, grated or shredded
Directions:
- Cut bread into 1” cubes, place on cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil and toast at 275 degrees until crispy, approximately 20-25 minutes.
- Mix olive oil, vinegar, s/p well.
- Add bread, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, and basil to dressing, mix well, and let sit for at least one hour. Garnish with parmesan cheese before serving.
August 27, 2024
Today was the last weekday community open hours that we are doing for the summer. I apologize for having to change the time at the last minute, but was there at 1pm today. Things are looking fairly good for late summer raised beds. However, as often occurs, the cucumber plants are yellowing. They are still producing flowers, and there are still some small cucumbers growing, but they have certainly slowed down their production in the past couple of weeks. The yellowing of the leaves can be due to a few different causes: 1. Too much or too little water; 2. Too much or too little sunlight; or 3. Nutrient deficiencies. I suspect that the recent lovely weather we’ve been having has robbed these cucumbers of the amount of water that they need. With this veggie having the highest percentage of water of any other, they require a lot of water to grow best, about 1″ per week. With raised beds and the excellent drainage they provide, they likely need even more than this. So, with rain predicted for tomorrow, I am hoping they will get the drink they need. If not, I will plan to water them on Thursday. It is also possible that the nutrients in the raised bed soil are not optimal. As with all gardens, soil testing is the single most important thing a gardener can do to optimize their harvest. Soil test kits are available through UVM Extension. Follow this link to get information on soil testing: Agricultural and Environmental Testing Lab | UVM Extension Cultivating Healthy Communities | The University of Vermont. You can download the form, or request a kit. This analysis will tell you what your soil consists of, and what is lacking. For help interpreting results, you can look on the UVM Extension website, or call for guidance for amending the soil. The best time to take samples is either spring or fall—if done in the fall, you can make amendments that can slowly take effect over the winter for spring planting. I will plan to do this testing of our beds this fall, to optimize our results for next year. I will keep you updated with our results!
Today I harvested beets, turnips, celery, scallions, yellow squash, eggplants, sage, rosemary, tomatoes, broccoli, kale, and the first crop of our filet beans! It was a banner day for harvesting.
The perennial bed is ready for new plantings. Vermont Wetland Plant Supply/Green Mountain Natives has generously offered to donate plants to complement our New York aster (Symphotrichum novi-belgii) with other flowering perennials that will flower at different times. We will be planting those in the upcoming weeks.
In other news, the strawberry plants (43!) are almost ready to go to their new homes! We will have them for people to take at the Orwell Food and Farm Fest on Sunday, September 8, from 12-4 pm. Any left over will be available at the OFL during open hours.
Starting on September 7, community open hours will be on Saturdays, at 10:30 am, continuing through the fall harvest, and cleaning up of the raised beds and perennials.
Please read below for a delicious recipe for roasted root vegetables—this one is a keeper!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 EMG intern
Maple Glazed Root Vegetables
Ingredients:
Assorted root vegetables: turnip, beets, rutabaga, sweet potato, parsnip, etc.
Extra virgin olive oil, approx. ¼ cup
1 Tbs chopped fresh thyme
1 Tbs chopped fresh rosemary
2 large cloves garlic, chopped
Salt and pepper, to taste
½ cup maple syrup
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Wash, peel, and dice veggies to a consistent size.
- Combine salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, garlic, and ¼ evoo in a large bowl. Add veggies, and toss, to coat.
- Spread veggies in a single layer on a sheet tray. Bake until golden, about 45-50 minutes, turning periodically
- Remove from oven, transfer to serving bowl, drizzle with maple syrup, toss to coat. Serve immediately.
9/3/2024
Today I worked in the beds after school, but the Community Open Hours will still be on Saturdays, 10:30 am. However, the beds were quite dry and needed a good watering. The weather forecast had predicted rain for last Wednesday, and again for a large rainfall over the weekend, neither of which occurred. So, I gave them a nice long drink today. The cucumber plants are very tired, quite dried up and yellowing, but there are still a few flowers on them. We may see a few more cukes in the upcoming weeks. However, if they do not perk up with the watering today, and predicted rain over the weekend, then I will plan to pull the plants out of the beds to try to prevent mold or other disease from spreading—if that is why they are dying off. There are still some nice summer squash coming along, and of course, the eggplants are producing like I have never seen! I picked two beauties today, but there are many more in all stages of development.
I did not do any other harvesting today, as I will save that for this weekend during the open hours. In addition, people are welcome to walk over to check out our garden beds out during the Orwell Farm & Food Fest this Sunday, September 8th, from 12 noon to 4 pm, on the Orwell Town Green. Bring a reusable bag for garden produce from our beds! Also, we will have the strawberry plants to give away then, as well. Stop by the UVM Extension “Ask a Master Gardener” table for your free plants, as well as some free seed packets.
The bean towers are growing very well, and the plants are looking healthy. There are a ton of beans for you to pick—remember, they are most tender when picked on the smaller side. I saw a lot of bees on the flowers from these bean plants, as well as on the New York aster in the perennial bed. I will be picking up additional pollinator plants from Green Mountain Natives and Bloomer’s Garden Design later this week and will keep you posted on how they are doing.
My other project for this week is to put in “official” labels for all the vegetables, with both their common name, as well as their scientific name. Be on the look out for these (hopefully!) weather proof labels that we can use again next year. See below for a super easy, super delicious way to use up those extra beans!
See you Saturday, and hopefully, Sunday too!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
Dilly Beans
(Put Em Up, A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, Sherri Brooks Vinton)
Ingredients:
4# fresh beans (any color), washed, topped, and tailed
1 Tbs black peppercorns
6 garlic cloves, sliced 4 cups distilled white vinegar
1 cup fresh dill weed 2 cups water
2 Tbs dill seed ¼ cup white sugar
2 Tbs salt
Directions:
- Wash 8 pint jars. Cut beans into lengths 1” shorter than the pint jars. Pack the beans into the clean, hot jars vertically, quite tightly. Divide the garlic, dill weed, dill seed, and peppercorns evenly into the eight jars.
- Combine the vinegar, water, sugar, and salt into a medium saucepan, and bring to a boil. Pour the hot brine over the beans to cover by ½”. Leave ½” open headspace between the top of the liquid and the lid. Release any “trapped air” by using a clean butter knife and gently going around the beans in the jar.
- To preserve these beans safely, they will need to be “canned” using the boiling water method. Wipe the rims of the jars clean; place lid insert onto jar, then screw on jar bands. Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes. Turn off heat after 15 minutes, remove cover, and allow jars to rest in water for an additional 5 minutes. Remove jars, allow to sit on counter, undisturbed for 24 hours. Make sure the lids are secure and sealed before storing. Can be stored for up to 1 year. If the lids did not properly seal, put in fridge and enjoy soon. To learn more about preserving and canning foods safely, go to: Food Safety | Consumers | UVM Extension Cultivating Healthy Communities | The University of Vermont
9/14/2024
Today was a busy day in the Orwell Community Garden. It has not rained since last week, and the beds were dry. After I harvested beets, turnips, rosemary, sage, tomatoes, eggplant, yellow squash, cucumbers, broccoli, kale, and LOTS of beans, I watered heavily. There is no rain in the forecast for the upcoming week either, so I will plan to come down to check mid-week after school to make sure everything is looking ok.
I was excited that I was able to plant perennials in the newly cleared bed, to add to the pollinators of NY aster and swamp milkweed that are already present. As I discussed previously, we want to try to space out the flowering, so the pollinators will have food from spring through autumn. The autumn months are a bit harder for flowering plants, as many perennials are spent, done with flowering, storing energy and food to improve their root systems to make it through the winter. However, there are some fun autumn flowering native perennials, if you know what to look for. Thank you to Vermont Wetland Plant Supply/Green Mountain Natives, and Bloomer’s Garden Design, both from right here in Orwell, for the donation of the plants that I put in today. As I also mentioned previously, it is important to have clumps of the same plant, but we are limited with our space right now, so we will be aiming for diversity, so there will hopefully always be at least one species of plant flowering at any given time. In addition, the different pollinator species (bees, hummingbirds, butterflies, moths, bats, wasps, and flies, to name a few) prefer different types of plants—ideally there would be a variation of height, color, flower shape, etc., to attract different pollinators. Did you know that native bees are 2-3 times better pollinators than the introduced, non-native honeybee? Honeybees are still important, but when species evolve together, they are the most efficient and effective!
Today I planted mountain mint (Pycanthemum virginianum), purple coneflower (Echinacea purpura), beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis), false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides), and columbine seeds (Aquilegia canadensis) from my own garden. There is a wealth of information on native plants on the UVM Extension website, UVM Extension Community Horticulture Programs | Extension Community Horticulture | The University of Vermont. There are many links to follow, and this is a nice list for our area: Native Plant List for New Hampshire, Maine and Vermont – PlantNative.org . In addition, Northeast Pollinator Plants in Fairfax, VT has a wonderful website (Northeast Pollinator Plants: A mail order pollinator plant nursery.) with lots of info, and a very useful chart called The Vermont Pollinator Habitat Plant Palette. It groups plants by their type, and lists them with their bloom time, in order, as well as their color highlighted–so it is easy to look at this chart and pick some from each bloom time with overlap.
So, for our blooming plan: flowering will begin in May with columbine (these may not flower the first year, as we are starting from seed); next will be beardtongue and coneflower in mid-June through early to mid-August; swamp milkweed will overlap, beginning in mid-July to the beginning of September; false sunflower will also overlap, beginning in in early to mid-July, and with deadheading, will bloom into the autumn; and, lastly, New York aster will begin to bloom in mid-August, and go through to October. Since these are all new plantings, they should not be allowed to dry out in this September hot spell, so I will plan to water these every other day. This is a bit more than what they would need if they were not in a raised bed, but the drainage is so good in our beds, that they dry out more quickly, as we have mentioned previously.
I will plan to be in the garden for open community hours next Saturday, September 21, at 10:30 am. Hope to see you there! Please enjoy the harvest from this week—it will be available at the OFL, first come, first served! Or pick from the beds that are there for our community! There are still healthy strawberry plants available at the Library, as well.
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
Sorry, no recipe this week, but I will come up with a delicious one for next week!
9/21/2024
This Saturday was once again a beautiful day. There was a bit of rain on Friday night, but not enough to penetrate our beds fully, so along with harvesting produce, most of my morning involved watering all the beds fully. Ideally, these established plants would like approximately 1” of water per week, so I used the hose and gave them a thorough fill. With eight raised beds, this takes a bit of time!
For a harvest this week: broccoli, the last of the turnips, beets, eggplant, tomatoes, summer squash, beans, and one lone, beautiful hot pepper. The lone green zebra tomato plant is finally almost ready to harvest—this plant was shaded out by the cherry tomato plants, but should be ready to pick this week. As always, these are at the OFL, free for the taking, as well as more available at the garden itself all week long.
The newly planted perennials are doing well, even in this heat. I watered this entire bed on Tuesday and Thursday, as well—these new plantings need much more water than established plants, so their roots do not ever dry out fully, otherwise the plants will die. This happens much more quickly when they are newly planted, so I will continue to water these plants every other day through the next few weeks.
There were a few weeds, but still not many. Another area of maintenance for this time of the year includes ridding the ground of diseased/fallen materials. This is especially notable around the broccoli and tomato plants. There are yellowed leaves that fall, then mildew. Continuing to pick these up will prevent further disease spread to the remaining, still healthy, plants. I continue to do this each time I work in the beds. The cucumber vines are just about completely spent, and clearing this bed will be a project for the upcoming weeks.
Next Saturday, from 9 am-1 pm is the Orwell Free Library’s Annual Harvest Sale, with used books, pumpkins, garden produce and canned goods, baked goods, soups to take home, and flower arrangements. We will have someone here at the Learning Garden at 10:30, and will be happy to give a tour, and share the produce. There may still be some free strawberry plants left to give away.
See below for a delicious tomato pie recipe. I have only made this with Roma tomato slices, but there is no reason not to use cherry or cocktail sized tomatoes, if that is what you have on hand.
See you Saturday at the Harvest Sale!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Gardener Intern
Tomato Pie
Ingredients:
5 Roma tomatoes, sliced (or substitute equivalent cherry/cocktail tomatoes)
10 fresh basil leaves, chopped
½ cup chopped scallions, (or can substitute regular onions)
Pie crust for 9-10” pie, partially baked (cover with parchment and pie weights, bake for 10-15 min, to slight brown)
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded other cheese (I use Swiss, or you can use mozzarella)
¾ cup mayonnaise (can use half mayo and half Greek yogurt)
2 Tbs grated parmesan cheese
Salt and pepper, to taste
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Place sliced tomatoes in a colander in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and allow to rest for 10 minutes. Then, use a paper towel to pat them dry to remove most of the excess moisture.
- Layer the tomato slices, basil, then onions into the pre-baked shell. Season with Salt and pepper.
- Combine the cheeses and mayo or Greek yogurt together, and spread on top of the onions. Sprinkle parmesan on top.
- Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Allow to rest for at least 15 minutes before cutting and serving. Store leftovers in the refrigerator for 3 days. Does not freeze well.
Courtesy of: Tastes Better From Scratch, Lauren Allen
10/29/2024
Today I had help with cleaning up the garden beds for winter—Christina Shaw, Certified Master Gardener from Benson, came to help with this project, and will also be helping with the Community Garden next spring and summer. I am grateful for her help, and look forward to collaborating and getting new, fresh ideas next year!
Today, we emptied almost all of the beds, with a few exceptions. We left the sage, as some varieties are perennial and hardy. While I suspect our tri-color variety will be more tender, and will not likely survive the winter, there is no harm in leaving it in the bed. The Brussels sprouts are coming along nicely, even with the fairly hard hit by the cabbage worm. These actually should not be harvested until later into the fall, when they have been weathered by a few frosts. Kale is similar to the sprouts, and is quite hardy—so if you need some
greens to spice up your fall salads, please come and harvest some kale to supplement your salads! The strawberry bed was left as is, with its good layer of mulch. And finally, the perennials were cut back, but nothing was removed from the bed.
As you can see from the pictures, there were still a few things to harvest, prior to pulling it all out—really nice broccoli, scallions, a few shallots, some hot peppers, and some of the filet beans to dry—we can either use these as dried beans, or can use to plant again next year.
We were very conscientious of cleaning the debris thoroughly from the beds, including the rotting broccoli leaves, and the abundance of cherry tomatoes that had dropped previously. These are great sources of diseases that can be held over from one year to the next, such as blights, and molds. We were also careful to do a thorough weeding—we do not need to give any weeds a head start for next year.
So, that’s a wrap on the inaugural year for the Orwell Community Learning Garden. Thank you to the Orwell Free Library for its support, as well as all the businesses that supported our efforts: Bloomer’s Garden Design, Green Mountain Natives, Golden Russet Farm, Lazy Dog Farm, Singing Cedars Farmstead, and Virgil and Constance Home and Garden. Thank you also to the community members who came to the garden and enjoyed the bounty—we hope you will join us again next year. Please let us know if you have any suggestions, or have a particular vegetable that you would like to see in the garden in the future.
Happy winter, and see you in the spring!
Karen DeMoy, 2024 Extension Master Garden Intern (although soon to be certified!)