Yikes! Where does the time go?

June 27, 2011

Well, here we are facing the 4^th of July and, no, our crops aren’t knee high! This whirlwind of a month took me to Denver, Colorado, with a promise to the staff I would make time to update this blog, but, between conference meetings and visiting with my RT peers, I was pooped! Blame it on the lack of oxygen, but every time I sat down to write, I fell asleep.

So here it is, the last Monday of the month and I am making another promise. I will write a short blog every day this week to catch up before I take a nice, quiet “staycation”. During that week, I will send you a quick update about another gardening project we are taking on at home.

This week’s updates will be about:

·         Another method for “Topsy Turvey” growing

·         An update on our plantings

·         A little bit about square foot gardening

·         Why we made some significant changes to our plans

At home, the garden is growing well. The tomatoes are in bloom, the peppers have little about the diameter of a quarter and if the eggplants produce according to bloom, we will have plenty to share. One note of disappointment- after losing the “Battle of the Beans” to the neighborhood rabbits, my husband gave up and plowed down what was left. It was probably for the best, as what was left was a row of bare stems! Rascally rabbits!!!

KeyBank volunteers help RTCO Make a Difference

It finally quit raining! We are so glad that we are not even complaining about the extreme heat, or that fact that this is the second year in a row Ohio has decided to skip having any pleasant spring days and gone right from yucky, cold, wet days to yucky, hot, humid days. At least, we are not complaining much.

Rob Zelina, Pete Schmitt, Eleanor Scott and John Welcome from

 KeyBank

The best thing about the dryer weather so far, is that KeyBank employees, Rob Zelina, Pete Schmitt, Eleanor Scott and John Welcome, came to share their time and talents to build our first raised bed and install the pole for our hanging garden.

What is a raised bed? So glad you asked! Because we are building our garden in an industrial park, we need to amend the soil to avoid pollutants and make it is well balanced. We know the here is heavy clay and not very welcoming to our plants.  The Ohio Farm Bureau explains the need for testing soil in home gardens on an annual basis in this article http://ourohio.org/home-gardens/gardening-basics/year-round/all-the-dirt-on-soil/

We built this bed with cement block our property manager donated- many thanks to Don and his terrific staff!!  When the City Challenge team was here, they lugged about 80 blocks from the back to our complex to our warehouse and started digging the footer and leveling the bed.

Rob, Pete and John hit the ground and really made our first bed a reality. They put in the rest of the block and then dug the holes for the hanging tomato plants (more on this later) and for a small tabled bed that will demonstrate gardening for those unable to get down on their knees to work.

Eleanor prepared the hanging tomato plants in commercial “Topsy Turvy” planters our staff member, Alec brought in from home. This is a great alternative for those who don’t have much room for gardening, and it makes a fun family project. If Alec hadn’t donated the hangers, we would have created our own- here are some simple instructions for using 2 liter bottles http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/2009/04/make-your-own-upside-down-tomato.html

P.s. Have to let you all know, I am feeling pretty proud of myself with this post- I got the photos where I actually wanted them, figured out how to add a caption and how to get the links to work! If you have any ideas, or suggestions, please send them my way. We are also looking for guest bloggers, so if you garden and have want to contribute, send me a note. Thanks!