Bellevue Park Community Gardens

      This will be my fourth year for working my plot at Bellevue State Park.  I am a mere newbie, as some gardeners have been there since the breaking of ground 28 to 30 years ago.  The plots are 40 feet by 20 feet, and water is available by frost free spigots every 80 feet.  There are a total of 178 plots, with another seven or eight smaller plots.  I started over at the park to be able to have a veggie garden in full sun.  On these 90 degree days, it is more pleasant to garden in my partially shaded garden in the back yard.

Bellevue Park  -   July 3, 2012

       There is a Pin Oak lined drive to the left side of the barn that separates the two groupings of garden plots.  My plot is nearly in the middle of all the plots on this section closest to Interstate 95.  That is at times a drag to have to haul soil improvements into the middle, but probably lessens the pilferage from both two legged and four legged beasties being more comfortable around the edges.

Looking north to the sign to Philadelphia

More views of the extensive gardens

My garden, on the 40 foot side

      Here is a patch of swiss chard ready for some harvesting.  Lou's nephew planted his first garden this year, and planted the chard too thickly.  These are thinnings from his bed, to go along with two smaller plantings here and a larger bed at home.  Now I am the one with too much chard.  But since the squirrels ate my Bright Lights chard starts down to nothing, more is better than none.  The glass in the picture is actually a stack of most of the glass panels for my extensive cold frames at the park.  I am very happy to be able to store them all in such a small space.

      These pepper plants are off to a good start.  Most people have difficulty with peppers at the park, as the plants usually wilt and die at some point.  So it is a challenge to see if I can get a good crop.  All of my peppers were started by seed back in January, so it is already one success so far.

      The rest of the peppers at the park.  These were all extras after I planted 16 plants at home of eight different varieties.  A few plants have not even made it into the ground yet.  Usually there are losses at planting time.  This year I have lost only two plants, and have my first volunteer pepper plant.  That is a little sweet banana pepper in the above shot.

      What is this growing between the chard bed and the north side of the compost pile?  A couple of volunteer mustards, with the rest being arugula.  Did you read that Barb?  Arugula in the heat of July.  It is doing quite fine in the shade of the compost pile.  I have not seen any arugula start from the many places I threw seed pods.  But this planting must have resulted from some seed stalks that spent too much time on top of the pile before being cut into compost size pieces.  Maybe I will try to transplant some, or I may leave the patch as is just for snitching when I am at my garden.

Volunteer sunflower

      All of these pictures were taken around 5:45 AM this morning, during my attempt to beat the heat.  Is a sunflower really a sunflower before the sun is up?

Something New Growing at the Park

      This will be the start of my fourth year of gardening at the park gardens.  It was in my second year that I started to make some basic lean to cold frames.  Bob King has had plots at the park since the gardens were started thirty years ago.  This will be his first year to do this:

      He borrowed a couple of pieces of glass from me, and I saw this new addition to one of his plots today.  The seed packets at the top left corner indicate that he has started this frame as a way to get early seed germination.  And another garden in the opposite direction:

      Eileen had this raised bed in a different spot in her garden, surrounding her asparagus bed.  I suggested that the asparagus really didn't care if it was in a raised bed or not, and that she could have a very quick cold frame by moving the box and adding a top.  Voila, another cold frame gardener.
      So this spring new cold frames will be sprouting in gardens at the park.  Move over Johnnie Appleseed, here comes Georgie Cold Frame.  It was Charles Caleb Colton who said:  "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".  And right he is.

No Walk in the Park

      Today has been down right miserable, rainy and dreary all day.  I can usually find a break to get outside and play in the dirt, but not today.  Makes me happy that I got out yesterday, even though it too was overcast and called for rain.  I worked on improving one of the cold frames that had basically been a leaner last year.

Cold frame for rebuild, 11/21/11

      This frame was made of 6 by 6 timbers laid in the ground front and back.  The back timber then had an additional 2 x 6 to elevate the glass panels.  The ends were just boards leaned loosely against the glass.  The improved frame will have an additional layer of 2 x 4's front and back, as well as fixed ends.

Volunteer dill, 11/21/11

      This volunteer dill was getting quite smashed whenever I had to put the glass on.  I think I will pot up the dill, and keep it on the porch.  Anybody want a dill plant?
      The following pictures are just for record keeping.

Lettuces, 11/21/11

Bellevue garden. 11/21/11

      The frame at the bottom is the one I was working on last week.  It still needs the left end piece built before cold weather sets in.  The upper frame is the current project.  When finished, a lot of the stuff in the upper bed can be transplanted to the completed frame.  A heck of a lot of activity still going on in the Thanksgiving week.

Tango lettuce and others for transplanting, 11/21/11

Oft mentioned Chinese Cabbage, 11/21/11

      I have been planning to cut the chinese cabbage for Thanksgiving, even if it doesn't get on the menu.  Well, Cindy is planning on having veggies and dip for Thursday.  Those inner leaves should be pretty darn scrumptious with a little dip.  So, I am hoping it is not on the deer's menu for Thanksgiving Eve.

A Walk in the Park

      I was itching to get out the door and over to the park garden, but delayed my visit after seeing the frost on the back yard leaf pile and cold frames.  Used some time to tidy up my seed packets.  Still more time needed to finish that project, but it was then 9AM and safe to go to the park.  Well, the little frost was actually a pretty hard freeze, so doing more work on the cold frames with bare hands wasn't so appealing.

Frost on the Chinese Cabbage, 11/19/11

Frost on the Tango Lettuce, 11/19/11

      Since it wouldn't be much fun working in this frosty patch, I decided to get some exercise and take a walk instead of gardening.  So although it was chilly, the sun was shining and the sky oh so blue.

So a walk it was

The blue sky I mentioned

Reflections off the pond

The geese perfectly happy with the chill

Finishing the walk

      Then back to the garden.  What a difference an hour makes.  The frost was gone, yet so was my desire to work in the dirt.  But an enjoyable morning nonetheless.

Frost was gone, 11/19/11

 

And the Chinese Cabbage was happy

No Till Gardening

      When we moved into our current home, there was a vegetable garden already in the back yard.  The problem was that the previous owner was a chemical oriented gardener, and there was literally no organic matter in a slick clay slop.  It was October, and it must have been wet that fall, so the whole garden was a slippery, slick mess.  Lengths of 2 x 4s were scattered about the garden to provide safe places to walk.  I started adding wood chips and leaves that very first year.  Not having a roto tiller and not wanting to spend the money for one, I must have become a no till gardener by accident, long before the method was as popular as it is today.  So in the 32 years that we have been here, my garden has never been tilled.  I remember trying the double dig method for maybe 1/2 an hour, before figuring out that method is really a lot of work.  Let the worms do it, they love it.
      No till gardening has lots of benefits, not the least of which is the appearance of a bunch of volunteer seedlings.  Unlike most gardeners who rip out older ready to seed veggies, I encourage them to grow on to produce their seed.

Bellevue, 5-3-11

      Many things are in seed quite early because they overwintered in the cold frames.  All the better as I will have fresh seed and volunteers for the fall season.  The white flowering plants are arugula, the yellow are various cole crops like mustards, kale, and collards.  For some reason, the cole crops for me are breeding true, rather than crossing willy nilly as suggested by the literature.  The lettuce, spinach and chicories are soon to bolt and put up seed stalks.

Bellevue, 5-3-11

      The plant on the left is a very mild tasting mustard that overwintered under some leaf protection.  I am going to save that seed for its winter hardiness.  The plants in the middle are Beedy's Kale.  I like this variety, and the seed crop failed at Fedco last year, so I will be happy to have my own supply.
       By not tilling, seeds from garden plants have a better job of coming up naturally in both the beds and the paths.  Path volunteers need transplanting to better areas.  Mulch can not be added in deep quantities at inopportune times, as that would kill the seedlings as it does the weeds.  The weed problem is far less with no tilling, as weed seeds are not continually tilled back to the surface.  On to the volunteers:

Sunflower to be, 5-3-11

Bellevue, 5-3-11

      On the far left is baby Lamb's Quarter, a dreaded weed to many, but quite edible and delicious when young and tender.  It has a very nice nutty flavor, and the deep taproot draws nutrients from deep in the soil to be added to the compost pile.  I actually transplanted some to the garden last year, but it is now freely self seeding.  To the right of it is a small celery plant, really not needed as I have millions in their own patch.  The plant that looks like a little carrot is actually going to be a cosmos.  As I have not started my seeds at home yet, it thrills me to be finding numerous cosmos coming up on their own.

Red Sails Lettuce and Sunflower, 5-3-11

Even more Sunflowers, 5-3-11

Bellevue, 5-3-11

      Nestled in among the overwintered onions are several volunteer lettuce babies and some red russian kale.  Carrot seed from my own collected carrot tops was broadcast amongst the onions in the fall.  Lots of carrots the size of my pinkie strongly hint it might be my most successful carrot year ever (pretty easy thing to accomplish).

Bellevue, 5-3-11

      More beautiful volunteer red lettuce, with feathery volunteer chamomile below it on the right.  To the left is a corner of the volunteer celery patch.

More lettuce, celery, and a sunflower, 3-3-11

Celery, celery, and more celery, 5-3-11

     Fellow gardener John V gave me a couple of celery plants last year.  True to form, I let them flower and seed.  Now I have millions of celery volunteers, others significantly larger than these.  I hope to get my first edible celery this year from these naturalized plants.  Home grown celery can be very strong flavored, more usable for soup stock than eating raw.  I have not tried the blanching routine yet, maybe this will be the first year.
      The baby tomato volunteers are just now starting to sprout.  Maybe that is an indication that the starts can go in the ground?

Keep planting

      I am out of room at the park already.  The tomatoes are not in, the peppers are not either.  The squash and cukes are just starting to sprout on the porch.  So now we start the ritual of cramming more and more plants into inadequate gardening spaces.  The weeds do it, why can't my garden?  Give the weeds a run for their lives.

Peas and Tango Lettuce, Bellevue, 4/27/11

      The shot above is of the ninth bed at Bellevue Park.  On the 27th, I planted a packet of Little Marvel seeds directly in the ground behind these Marvel plants put in from transplants started on the porch.  The frilled Tango Lettuce is now big enough to snip off some outer leaves.  It just occurred to me that I should start some sort of trellis bean on the porch to fill in, as the peas are bush peas, and will not use the top trellis space.  That would be an unacceptable waste of space.

Ox Heart tomatoes, 4/27/11

      One of my gardening neighbors, Brownie, gave me some Ox Heart tomato plants as he was planting his.  Brownie bought and installed a walk-in kit greenhouse at his home last fall.  He is now the proud father to way too many strapping young plants.  He called me over the other day to chat, and surprised me by handing me a fistful of fotos to look at.  You guessed it, his stack of greenhouse pictures.  I divided the two plants in the clay pot, and set out the four plants to spots that could add stakes.  I have never planted out tomatoes this early, but if Brownie can do it, so can I.
      The bottle on the right side of this shot is the "Bottle of Doom".  I patrol the garden at times, and hand pick the bad bugs.  The nasty Herlequin Beatles are already making a very early appearance.  I am trying to pick them off before they get a first initial spawn in.  They take a final swim in the gross remains of former bugs in the bottle.  Maybe if I just left the top off, the disgusting smell would warn the bugs that my garden was not a friendly place.  Maybe then I could sell the stuff?  

Crowd it in, 4/27/11

       The shot above was taken after I transplanted Space Spinach starts in among the Caprio onions starts put out earlier.  The four leafed plant is one of many, many sunflower volunteers getting ready to sky rocket.  At the bottom left is a carrot volunteer.  Along the bottom of the shot are the turnips starting to come up from the seed direct sowed last week.  No weeds invited to this party.

Fava beans, 4/27/11

      The Fava beans are already starting to flower!  Way before other beans are even planted into the ground.  This year I need to try harder to find some recipes for the beans.  I have been enjoying snitching a few leaves now and again to eat straight from the plants.  To force them to get bushier of course.
      Well doing all of this writing has just made me too impatient.  I must go over to the park now to see things in real time.  To check on the plants.  And the robins too.  Good gardening - George

Competition

      Lou's chair snatcher is still sitting on her eggs over at the park:

Brave mother, 4/27/11

4/27/11

      Several of the gardeners with plots near Lou's garden got together to make a central tool storage spot.  Looks like a pretty comfy hang out, so no great surprise, another pushy robin!

Tool corral, 4/27/11

      With garden activity busy all around her, she even upped her egg count to three!

Three little beauties, 4/27/11

      Never a dull moment at the Bellevue Park gardens.  I think the Momma robin is pretty clever with her snazzy color scheme.

Best Seat in the Park

      One of my buddies at the park, Lou, has his garden nicely cleaned up and a beautiful crop of self seeded Black seeded Simpson Lettuce is coming up.  He has hilled up his beds and put straw down in the rows.  It really looks nice.  He even has a lawn chair set up in a spot he is not using so that he can sit and admire his garden.  Trouble is, somebody else has claimed his seat.  Just when you think that you rule the roost.

Thanks Lou, best seat in the park

      How brazen of the Mama robin to build her nest right in Lou's chair.  What is Lou to do?