Photo by Robin Ritterhoff "Once more the liberal year laughs out O'er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature's boldest triumph told." - John Greenleaf Whittier Even though it was an unusually warm day at the gardens today, we can see that fall is on its way. The trees were starting to wear their beautiful colors and final clean up of the garden was done. We will finish up next week and hope our delivery of leaves will be there for us. We had a mom and 4 children come and enjoy our garden. We also had a photographer enjoying our flowers. Thank you all for making 2016 a success. We had some difficulties but our garden was beautiful and we donated 1512 pounds of food to MANNA. Our tools and sheds were cleaned and are ready for us to start fresh next spring! Garden Reports: Butterfly Garden: Peggy Stanford It was a "beautiful day in the neighborhood". The weather was perfect for us to move chips to weeded areas to reduce their growth next year. A Monarch floated through the air and we were visited by a friendly grey cat. Who would have guessed? He was probably interested in the chipmunks, mice and birds. Photo by Peggy Stanford: Visiting cat Children’s Therapeutic Garden: Ellen Meyerson The four students came to the Garden with their counselors on Tuesday. We spent most of the time putting the garden to bed for the winter. They did pick leaf lettuce from the salad table and lots and lots of mouse melons which we gave to Manna. The counselors were very helpful in removing old plants with extensive roots. They made quick work of a job that would have taken us much longer. The students finished up by watering the newspapers we spread on the beds. Next week will be our last day in the garden this year. We plan to add more compost and/or leaves. Herb and Fragrance Garden: Kathy Tsai Today was another abbreviated work day in the Herb and Fragrance garden. The usual deadheading was done on the African blue basil and the dahlias. Some of the liatris was removed and the seeds scattered. Several basils were cut back mainly to clean up their appearance. At 10:00 we listened to part of Joe Ginther's presentation on sharpening and caring for tools, and then headed back to do a bit more clean up. Toward the end of the morning, Marty cut back some of the Mexican bush sage and the African blue basils in an attempt to give the chocolate-scented daisies a little more fall sun. We noticed that the heirloom rose has another bud on it, and the french lavender is also full of buds. Hopefully by next week, both will be blooming. One small surprise was seeing a small blossom on the tea olive, which normally blooms in April. We all enjoyed a visit from a beautiful and friendly gray cat that decided the garden was a really good place to lounge and get lots of attention. Photo by Darlene Nicholson: Mexican Sage 100 Square Foot Garden: Linda Taveira-dasilva The party's finally over! Under a false summer sky the last quadrant of the garden was harvested. The proliferative tomatillo plant, still with babies, went screaming into that good compost. The pepper plants, chard and other sorry looking greens submitted weakly to the inevitable. The fat and overgrown oregano was dug up, drawn and quartered and adopted out. We composted the last empty space and seeded it with clover. The other spaces previously planted with ground cover were already germinated and well on their way to growing into a sparkling green carpet for the winter. We weeded and watered before kissing and turning out the light for the season. Edibles: Erica Smith We provided lots of greens to the compost team this week - in other words, we pulled down the Tromboncino squash, the mouse melons on the arbor, and the scarlet runner beans, which added up to lots of leaves and vines. We also harvested a surprising amount of produce, including lettuce, chard, Malabar spinach, cabbage (heading and Chinese), mustard, kale, runner beans, mouse melons, and itty bitty baby Tromboncinos. Claude took down all the remaining roselle hibiscus and was thrilled to surprise his wife with enough sorrel for all winter! (By the way, no it won't survive outside if you plant it - way too cold here.) Nearly all our beds are mulched via one method or another - cover crops, newspaper and compost, disintegrated straw bales - but we'll do a bit more weed suppression at some point in November after we get our shredded leaves delivery. Aside from that we are nearly done for the season, and since Robin will be out next week we'll skip the Manna run. Please come for our final work day and help out in other areas, though! Photo by Erica Smith: Barbara, Karin and Robin taking down the mouse melon MANNA: Robin Ritterhoff 42 pounds, for a YTD total of 1512 pounds. This is probably our last harvest of the season. Several gardeners have noticed that our total harvest this season is nearly 200 pounds lower than our 2015 total, and close to 300 pounds lower than our 2014 contributions. This season was challenging in many ways, and we are looking ahead optimistically to a more productive 2017 season. BALES: Robin Ritterhoff We finished taking apart the hay bale garden, thereby achieving our goal of returning the bed where the bales & keyhole had been into flat soil with no place for the rodents that plagued us to overwinter. The bales had subsided considerably as they gradually evolved into compost, and the bottom 4 or 5 inches of the bales was thick rich soil. This will be lovely to plant in next spring. We delighted in the visit of the beautiful gray barn cat, Sasha (?), who made short work of one of the long tailed furry creatures who ate so many of the vegetables and even the plants in the bales and keyhole bed. We sure wish we had brought Sasha for a long visit earlier in the season! Photos by Robin Ritterhoff: Claude with cat BUG REPORT: Darlene Nicholson Photo by Robin Ritterhoff: Our amazing bug expert- Darlene! TEST... I REPEAT THIS IS A TEST! Here are some of the bug images that were reported on this year at Derwood. How many can you identify? Answers are below. Come on, try to ID before peeking! 14 correct ... You must be an entomologist! 10 - 13 ... wow you rock! At least 10 correct... you did a respectable job of learning bug names this season! Below 10... You really need to glance over the weekly report and check out the bug report. Remember all the images reported here were taken at Derwood this season. #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #12 #13 #14 Answers! # 1 Asparagus beetles # 2 Sow bugs ( I'll also accept Pill bugs.) These guys are really hard to tell apart if they don't roll up when you touch them, as pill bugs do. # 10 Lady Bird Beetle (Lady bug) with Oleander aphids If you haven't already figured this out, you can obtain the names of the others by rolling over them with your mouse. Closing Comments: Lily and Bill Thank you Joe for leading the tool maintenance workshop. It was nice to see all our volunteers cleaning and preparing the tools so they are ready to go next spring. Its so important to know how to do this, and most of us have never done it. Photo by Darlene Nicholson: Joe giving our talk Photo by Erica Smith: Barbara maintaining our tools. Photo by Robin Ritterhoff: Cleaning Melitta’s shovel Photo by Darlene: Bill reviewing tool maintenance Photo by Robin Ritterhoff: Joe and Mohamed comparing tool maintenance practices Notes taken by Betsy Taylor on Joe’s tool maintenance are attached. Thank you Betsy! The second shed was enthusiastically emptied completely, cleaned and things that were not inhabited by mice were put back. Special thanks go to Edith, Karen and Marlow and many others for the enormous task you took on! What an amazing job! Photo by Darlene: Karen and Edith cleaning shed Edith and Marlow with the finished product! Thank you!!
Next week is the last official work day. We will meet on November 1st at 11:30 at Maria’s house to celebrate the end of the season. Please bring some food to share. Hope to see everyone there! Next Grow It Eat It event for Derwood is April 29th. Please put it in your calendars! If you still have receipts, please get them to me! With the help of Joslyn and her husband, Michele, lots of work got done in the outdoor storage area. Patty has donated bricks and we will be working on this area in the next few weeks. More information will follow as we know more. Thanks everyone! See you all next week!
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