CORN CLEAN-UP!

We've sure had some delicious ears of corn this fall, however, we've also lost a lot of corn to rot/water damage. (We may have to re-think how we water the corn next year, OR pray for no rain at the wrong time!) We continue to live and learn!! We got a lot of clean up done in the short hour we had. But the weather was BEAUTIFUL and it felt so good to be outside enjoying it all! Thanks for the great job of pulling corn and composting beds! It looks great!!

Ahhhh, September!!

Suddenly it's September, and temperatures are instantly cooler!! And it was a beautiful morning to be working in the garden! Amazing what can be accomplished in one hour! We hope the trash man doesn't mind our pile of debris. Who would have thought our beautiful sunflowers would create so much bio mass??? We found a few different creatures in the garden and the kids enjoyed the variety of work/fun.

SUNFLOWERS, ANYONE???

So we experimented this year by planting a variety of sunflower seeds. Some of them were definitely overachievers!! They aren't the dainty things you see in flower bouquets, that's for sure!

But sure fun to have in the garden!!

GREAT GARDENERS!!

Wow! What a productive hour we spent in the garden this morning!! With over 35 people there to help out, we got a ton done!! We had BIG kids, LITTLE kids, OLD people, and YOUNG people...we even had a SUPER HERO show up!! Everyone got involved and we had a lot of fun getting the work done! Thanks for the great help everyone!!

These kids did a great job with the carrots and beets planting! And the parents caught on very quickly, too!!

Not sure if the boys got more work done or more playing. . .

either way, they knew how to make it fun!

WE LOVE OUR COMMUNITY GARDEN!! Lots of pics in the slide show, too!!

Garden Activity

Even YOUNGER kids are a big help in the garden!! These 8, 9 and 10 year old girls (with some of their siblings...) did a great job weeding, picking vegetables, and helping out in the garden. They had a lot of fun, too!

ONE WEEK LATER. . .

Yup, just one week later we have six beds of corn coming up great and 2 beds of green beans!! We LOVE gardening in Dixie!!

From Garden

We "pre-soak" the corn seed for three days, then plant it. We were gone until Saturday, so I don't know for sure when it started poking through, but it was five days from when we planted that we came home and found nearly all of it an inch or two high! The green beans were barely showing on Saturday, but by Sunday afternoon they were nearly ALL up!

From Garden

Sunflowers are another story. The Russian Mammoth (the really tall, big ones!) will produce the seeds we're familiar with eating. The others are just pretty! But I think we'll plant differently next year!

From Garden

Three Days Later. . .

We sure have gotten a lot of work done in preparation for the corn and beans planting!!

HOLY COW!!

WOW! What an amazing group of people showed up at the garden for a fun time!! I'm not sure which was more fun...watching the adults poke holes so the corn could be planted, the 12 and under kids having a weed pulling contest, or the group that was planting the green beans to perfection!! Oh wait...I DO know what was most fun: the WATER FIGHT after we had treats!!! (Sorry Muki!) I should have taken more pictures, but this gives a little idea of what went on!

SOME people talked more than they worked...others worked while they talked!!

THE WEED PULLING GANG . . .

EVEN THE TEENAGERS HAD FUN. . . and worked hard, too!! Thanks guys!! ^_^

THE CORN PLANTING GOT DONE IN SHORT ORDER!!

LET THE WATER WAR BEGIN!!

LET THE CUCUMBER HUNT BEGIN!!!

KATAUNA CAME UP WITH THE BIGGEST ONE AND WAS NAMED "CUCUMBER QUEEN!!"

Nothing quite like gardening with good friends!!

Summer Garden Party. . .

6:00 a.m. is a BEAUTIFUL time to work in the garden!! We had a great turnout and got a good start on getting ready for our corn planting next week!

We pulled onions, beets, and carrots; picked squash, zucchini, tomatoes, and cucumbers, and SQUISHED a bunch of squash bugs with our gloved fingers!! (Does that make them "squish bugs"?)

And everyone left with a bagful of produce!!

Not bad for an hour's worth of work!

Salsa Time!

Head over to the garden and get some tomatoes, onions, and peppers, and mix up a batch of salsa!! What a great time of year when there are so many vegetables ripe and ready to be enjoyed! Be sure to dig up some carrots and beets REAL SOON because what is left will be dug up and set out on the corner for the rest of our neighbors to use if "garden workers" have picked all they care to use. July 24th is JUST AROUND THE CORNER and that means getting ready to plant our corn, potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and green beans!!

Fresh Veggies

Well, the muncher cruncher cucumbers are at it AGAIN!! Just when I thought it would be awhile before the cucumbers started producing, I was WRONG! There were TONS ready to pick. They sure are good producers, and the cucumbers are really tasty!! Be sure to spend some time in the garden pulling weeds, and picking a cucumber or two. The tomatoes are just about ready to turn red, too!

Primary Kids' Planting Time

With some good help from the adults, we got the broccoli patch pulled, carrots thinned, beets thinned, and the peanut bed ready for the Primary kids to plant! The pictures don't show how much the wind was blowing, but it surely was!! The primary kids came anyway and did a great job working in the garden! We thinned carrots, cut off seed heads from the onions, pulled some beets, AND planted peanuts!! We LOVE our peanut patch!

Garden Photo Shoot

The garden is looking well-cared for, thanks to everyone's help!! Hope you enjoy the pictures. (We also got a beautiful load of "BLACK GOLD" delivered today, thanks to the generosity of ALLIED WASTE and Jason Godfrey! THANK YOU!!)

Thin, thin, and thin some more!

Another beautiful day in the garden! Too bad we didn't get more pictures! We got two beds of beets thinned and put a WHOLE WHEELBARROW full of beet greens out on the corner for people to take home. (We only gave less than 1/4 to the chickens after it got dark!) Thanks to the Porters for their diligent work getting so many weeds out of the pathways and by the shed!! WHAT A DIFFERENCE! Thanks to Rick, and Toni, Elizabeth, Clarene, and Faith Ann for helping out today. Others came on Friday since they couldn't be here on Saturday. We ALWAYS appreciate everyone's help!! THANK-YOU!!

Rainy Days and Mondays...don't get us down!

Maybe it's not exactly the weather we were hoping for, BUT it made pounding all the posts into the ground a rather easy job! And we figured out how to get the signs to stay up when the tape wasn't holding well in the wet weather! So, it was another successful day in the garden! (Beside, one of our horses foaled this morning, giving birth to a cute little filly, so it was a GREAT day!!)

Special Tribute

There will never be a "right time" to do this...Devon won't like it no matter when...but since I have the computer access he'll just have to deal with it. ^_^ I wanted everyone to know that there wouldn't be much of a garden, if any, if not for Devon Reeves!! Talk about a great side-kick!! He has been heavily involved with the garden from its inception, and I don't know what we would do without him! Particularly since I've been taking some college classes last semester and this semester, my time in the garden has been very limited. However, Devon has been there nearly every day, working on water lines, making sure everything is getting watered, and doing the bulk of the watering changes that have needed to be made. Because of Devon, and everyone else's help, we're going to have another great garden year!! THANK-YOU!!!

What a party. . .a WORK PARTY!!

How can so much work get done in just one hour?!?!? HAVE LOTS OF HELP SHOW UP!!! What a great evening in the garden! We planted four beds of tomato plants, two beds of squash, zucchini, crook neck, yellow zucchini and seneca; one bed of cucumbers plants, one bed of cucumber seeds, one bed of bell peppers, anaheim and sweet banana peppers, two beds of squash seed; thinned one bed of beets, and another bed of half lettuce and half beets; pulled one bed of broccoli and got LOTS off to share with workers, and of course some of the youngest kids there had a blast playing in the dirt!! HUGE THANKS to Deric Despain and his AG classes at Snow Canyon High School for growing such amazing plants for us to use in our garden!! We LOVE the community garden! (P.S. Ignore the dates on the pictures...the camera is new and the date function needs set! Oops!!)

Did you say SWIMMING PARTY?!?!

We have been praying for rain, but I guess we should have been a bit more specific. . . NOT until we're done at the garden!! In spite of the rain, we had a great working crew that got LOTS done!! Lots of small weeds were removed from all of the beds, rocks were disposed of, LOTS of broccoli was cut, and the garden looks better than ever! Thanks to everyone, even MaryAnn with her broken wrist!, who came and helped out in the garden! You are greatly appreciated!! Reminder to those with tomato beds, squash, cucumbers, etc.: We will have plants at the garden this Wednesday (March 30th) at 6:00 p.m. If you can be there to help plant, that would be great!! Patrice

January 2011 Pics

Are we really transplanting onions already?!?!

We know how to have fun!!

What a great group of gardeners!! We even had some NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK join in!! A special welcome to Erick and Rhonda, Scott Plummer, Toni Kodweis and Susan Kania, and Jan Heward. Thanks also to the Williams and Godfrey clans, and Debbie Hafen, for all the help!! We planted beets, carrots, lettuce, tilled and raked beds, re-strung nearly all the beds, and almost all are ready for planting when it's time in March. WOW!!