Hi friends. Just a quick reminder that we’ll be back working in the dirt tomorrow morning from 8-11 (likely closing pretty promptly tomorrow). Hope you’ll be able to join us!

There’s a lot of work that’s been done in the garden lately! Broccoli heads are forming, bok choy seeds and rutabaga seeds have germinated, kale is being lightly harvested and there’s some mixed salad greens and collards that should be ready to go tomorrow, too. And we even have one bed of tomatoes that’s hanging on for dear life; we were thinking Tuesday that they started perking up after they saw all their sister tomatoes being pulled out recently. J There seemed to be a good number of green tomatoes on the vine. Fried green tomatoes and a spicy remoulade sauce—yum, yum!

And just in case you were wondering, yes, we still have peppers! I have to say that this is one time I kind of wish that we weighed crops; I’d love to know what our production of those has been this summer! I’d like to suggest that perhaps we only harvest the jalapenos and bell peppers that people want to eat tomorrow and let some of them mature to red for a little different flavor. Plus, it’s better to save seeds from the mature, red peppers. I also stumbled across a recipe in Sunday’s paper for a hot pepper sauce (think Texas Pete) that maybe some of you might like to try.

Tomorrow, we need to water new beds (if it’s not raining already) to give them a nice, deep drink of water. One of our strawberry beds has been mulched with wheat straw (thanks, Chris and Sam!) and another one needs to be mulched tomorrow. And if we have time, we’ll prep and plant a bed of garlic. Tonya saved some heads of garlic from our harvest this year, and we’ll plant a bed with that. In part of the bed, we’re going to plant the little tiny inner cloves from the garlic head; these won’t make much of a bulb, if any, but we’ll designate those from which to harvest the green shoot, or scape, of the garlic. These are very edible and very tasty. Google it and see for yourself!

Oh, and just a reminder about Fred’s invitation earlier to take some strawberry plants home with you, if you want. We’ll also be digging up some strawberry plants that we’ll share at our missions fair at Apex United Methodist Church Sunday. Our garden is going to be featured in worship service, and we’ll also have a table set up to give folks more information about the garden. If you’d like to join us this Sunday, or any Sunday, we’d love to have you; let me know and I can give you details and will gladly meet you and sit with you.

OK, so this wasn’t quite the quick reminder that I intended. I really do love the garden and sometimes just can’t stop myself. J

Hope to see you all soon!

Sandra

P.S. Don’t forget our fall garden potluck dinner is coming soon—October 29th at 6pm in the red brick building on Apex United Methodist Church’s main campus. Even if you’ve not been able to be at the garden much this year, you are still welcome; we’d love to reconnect with you! See Anne’s email from October 3rd with details, or I can forward to you if you can’t locate it.