The Day I Begin to Turn Over Early Plants at the Community Garden

The full community garden flourishes,
as do my tomatoes in the foreground 

Early Saturday, June 16, sun shines brilliantly on the Bible Street arm of Greenwich Community Gardens. Four or five people kneel by their garden beds, three or four more than I usually see during my early morning visits on weekdays. Looking at the weather forecast, I see sun, sun, sun. Good for the plants. Sun is not my friend, however, so I visit the garden early or late and I wear pants, hats and heavy layers of SPF skin protection.

I scan the whole community garden, and all the beds are flourishing. One gardener grows lettuces in parade-like rows, another cultivates sunflowers, another trains her beans to climb string ladders, and still another plants a tangle of tomatoes and nothing else. When our rain-delayed community social finally unfolds next week, I will wander the garden and take note of things to try next year.  

Progress is rapid in garden bed A6. 

• The tomatoes are heightening. One cherry tomato plant puts out yellow flowers, and small tomato globes form on another. The runt cherry is healthy, short but thriving. 

Bell peppers form flowers

• Bell and jalapeño peppers flower (grow, grow, I whisper). I notice that the tomato plants block the peppers' light in the morning. If I visit in the late afternoon or evening, I suspect the peppers will be drenched in sunlight. Worth watching for next year: Leafy tomato plants impinge on the growth of other vegetables.

• Four patty-pan squash mounds, planted in late May, take off. Soon I must stake them. Patty-pans normally spread outward. The density of my garden bed suggests that I must train them to grow upward. Good luck with that.

A small yellow flower peeks out
between the cucumber bushes 

• My string beans and cucumbers are flourishing. The beans do not yet twine around the wire frame, but soon. The cucumber bush hybrids are healthy. I place a wire frame around them so they grow upward.

As I admire the healthy vegetables, I take stock of the vegetables and plants that fare poorly. 

• The carrots are cramped and overgrown. Green fronds abound, but when I pull out a few carrots to thin out the crowd, I find skinny, anemic wannabes. Lesson learned: Don't overcrowd, and thin out aggressively.

• Of the half-dozen beet seedlings I planted in April, only one grows. What will I do with one beet? No matter. The beet is a bust -- leaf, but no beet. I could use some tips for beet success.

• I plant three basils from Garden Education Center of Greenwich. I volunteer in the GEC greenhouse on Friday, where I help cultivate the basils as they grow from seeds to seedlings to plants. Between the new basils and the basil seeds I planted in May, maybe I will get too much basil. Nah. Never too much basil.

• Weeds are doing well, sorry to say. I kneel on the perimeter and yank three-leaf clover-like weeds, delicate and prolific, they grow intertwined with carrots, lettuces and radishes. Is this a symbiotic arrangement or a parasitic arrangement? Anyone know? 

Diane Tunick Morello
near Steamboat Basin geysers and gurglers
on the northeast shore of Lake Yellowstone

Until next time, what flourishes in your community garden? What do you discover is a bust? What will you do differently next year? 

Ciao for now --

Diane Tunick Morello