by Amy Swanson
Last time I was at the Interfaith Garden was Oct 10th for an afternoon of recalling why vegetable gardens are important not only for our physical, psychic and spiritual health, but also for our environment. It was a beautiful Indian summer kind of afternoon. The sun was shining, the air was crisp and you ended up wanted to shed the coat when you were in the sun. And the garden, already having yielded over 950 lbs of produce, still had lots of life. Staked high still were plants with late season tomatoes and beans. There were stands of cabbage, broccoli, bok choy, chard, and basil that were at least knee to thigh high.
Yesterday, Nov. 2nd, was just 3 weeks later but now the garden has gone horizontal…even flat. See what I mean?
What a different impression as you approach. As you can see, the garden is almost at an end. But this is New England and it is Nov. and what else should I expect when you best show up to work with gloves and hats!
On Saturday we will be picking the last crop standing: broccoli. It’s kind of ironic that broccoli is the last productive crop considering the difficulty in getting broccoli to survive earlier this season. Carla mused whether this last plot of broccoli might be the 4th planting of it? The first and second succumbed to cutworms and root fungus. The 3rd attempt yielded some but critters liked it as well. This last planting might be the most productive and the last of it will be harvested on Saturday. Below is the last corner of “verticality” in the garden, the broccoli patch.
The last of the broccoli