Early August Community Garden Update!

It is time for a community garden update! As we are in the hottest time of the year, (100 degrees a few times last week) the vegetables, flowers and herbs are growing by leaps and bounds!

We have had to up our watering game since it has been incredibly dry and invested in a sprinkler with a timer. The timer allows the garden to get a good 30-60 minute soaking while we take a walk around the area for exercise. Our ground has a lot of clay as it hadn’t been worked for awhile and we weren’t prepared to invest in a truck of soil/compost so late in the season. It should hold water much better next year since we’ll have more time to prepare it.

We have just started being able to harvest some of our crops. Our Space Masters Cucumbers are coming in one after another. We harvested 3 this week and in a few days it looks they’ll be more. The lemon cucumber which was close to death when we first got it, pulled through and I imagine in a week or two it’ll be ready for harvest as well.

The tomato plants are getting heavy with fruit that only is just starting to change from green to red. I think they would have gotten taller if we were able to get cages or a better set up for them to climb up. The marigolds are popping up all over. The sunflowers are getting taller but no flowers yet and the same goes for the Cosmos I planted. The peppers look ready to pick this weekend.

Having a garden isn’t without its pros and cons. We have lost a few crops to gophers. My chives that were thriving got eaten last week! I am so glad I kept a few growing on my apartment porch. There are holes all over the garden from these pest. There’s really nothing we can personally do about them! I just hope they don’t disrupt any of the other crops.

I plan on getting seeds in the ground for a Fall and Winter garden in a few weeks time. It’s crazy to think we are starting to get closer to the end of Summer. I personally love Fall as it is not as dry or hot! In the Summer time, we barely get any rain and that’s why we have a lot of fires in the Northwest during this time. Contrary to what most people think about Oregon it does not rain all the time….we get dry spells and very hot Summers too!