Garden Updates

Tuesday's library/garden program for young readers was such fun and so successful! Gus joined us for the morning and Andrea had a wonderful "watering day" book and activity planned.

16 youngsters from CV Camp came with their counselors and really showed interest in discovering, watering and exploring the garden offerings.

They found yellow pepper, underground onions, hidden cauliflower, hanging beans, and squash of every size.

Each kid picked, and some ate, a green bean!!

Great program, great learning.

Worms and Compost next week!

Becky

Hello gardeners!

We've installed the community fridge. I put this week's harvest in there to get the ball rolling. We will be posting signage to alert folks they can leave and take things for folks as they please. We will continue to bring harvest up in the future to Stratton, but this will be a great way to also engage our town community directly when we have some leftover, and maybe even more from donations from the community in addition to our own produce.

The beans are really coming in, so if you see a bunch that you can harvest over the next few weeks, feel free to fill a plastic container and put them in the fridge. I spent about an hour picking them out today and feel like I hardly made a dent, so it will require some diligence from the group to keep them at bay I suspect!

I didn't see any more pests since Nobuko's Japanese beetle sighting. But please keep a close eye on things when you are watering and feel free to terminate.

As always, here is the link to volunteer, hopefully we can get August filled up soon: https://www.cvlibrarygarden.com/volunteer

Also, special thanks to Kate from University of Maine Extension who swung by to share some pointers and resources last week. We have some more great enhancements in the works, such as continued evaluation of automated irrigation and some educational signage. More to come on that!

Thank you for everyone's hard work, the garden looks truly amazing and so many people have shared their positive thoughts the past few weeks.

-David

Here are a few CVPL Garden updates to keep everyone informed:

Food Outreach Expansion: In consultation with Andie, we plan to expand our food outreach to include local neighbors in need within the Valley. While supporting the Eustis/Stratton community remains our top priority, we believe we can also address local needs. To facilitate this, we have ordered an outdoor refrigerator and will set up a "Give and Take" stand outside the library. Similar to a Little Free Library, this will allow local growers to donate excess summer produce. More details will follow once it is set up.

Tomatoes: The back-left tomato beds are growing slower than the smaller beds on the right, likely due to receiving less sunlight, or potentially a soil issue. Hopefully, this will just result in a staggered, longer harvest.

Pest Control: The covered back-right long bed has successfully kept most insects out so far. We are monitoring fruit development, which is currently minimal but progressing.

Grapes: We have weeded, fertilized, and mulched the three grape plants. Please continue to water these along with the vegetables.

Fertilizer: We applied an organic 10-10-10 fertilizer to all beds last weekend and have already noticed improvement. The next application is planned for early August.

Hose: Our expandable hose has broken. We are currently using a standard hose while we look into a permanent solution, which may involve attaching it to the CVPL building in coordination with the town.

Hydroponics: Francois Moretto provided us with two hydroponic buckets to test growing tomatoes. We have six plants growing in water and fish emulsion. I will manage the maintenance for these buckets, so there is no need to tend to them during regular watering.

Library Reception: There is a CVPLibrary reception this afternoon, which will hopefully be held outside near the garden. I will be there to answer any questions, and you are welcome to stop by if you are available.

Chris

We planted our seedlings and got the garden in the ground.

Thanks for all the volunteers who came by!

It's August, and it's still very dry! Thank you to everyone who has been coming together to make sure the plants stay well hydrated in this dust bowl. Thank you to Nobuko, Joyce, Mary and Becky for holding down watering, weeding, harvesting, etc the past week. And of course, Gus the garden dog!

Harvesting: Monday and Thursday meeting @ 9am for a 10am dropoff in Eustis. This will be our new schedule as we move into heavy harvesting mode. If you'd like to help out, please meet around 9am on either day. And if you feel like driving up to Stratton, that is also an option and always welcome!

Call to action: We need containers! Any sort of plastic food containers will do. If you have leftovers from your own grocery shopping, we'd love to have them. We have been going through a ton this year, which is great, but we are now running a bit low as a result.

Pests: A couple of you have reported a pest or two. If you can properly identify that it is indeed a pest and not a pollinator, feel free to kill on the spot. Chris most recently came across and terminated a Japanese Beetle.

Harvesting this week - We are aiming for Tuesday July 29 and Friday August 1 for harvesting this week. I will be leading tomorrow and I believe Chris will be handling things on Friday. If anyone wants to meet me tomorrow around 9 to harvest, that would be great!

Volunteering - Thank you Nobuko and Joyce for holding down watering duties the past few weeks. It looks like Mary and Becky pick things up on August 1. Thank you to Peggy for taking some days in August. It looks like we almost have full coverage for the month!

Otherwise, not a ton of updates from me today. I've included some pictures from yesterday when I took a quick look upon my return. I've also included an update on harvest totals so far this year. You can always find the most up-to-date number on the website homepage. Great work, everyone!

Well, folks, we had our first garden kidnapping of the year! I checked in on things last night and was really excited to harvest this blue ribbon squash, only to find this morning that it had been taken. Let's take this as a celebration of all the great work we are doing. I am happy someone will be enjoying it!

Signage - This makes me think it might be a good time to create a sign of some kind explaining the garden, our mission, and maybe linking out to our website for more information.

Website Update - I am keeping a running tally of the food we have harvested on the home page. I am also posting our garden update emails here. And I will soon be updating the volunteer page to be mobile friendly.

Garden Promo - We are doing an interview with the Daily Bulldog this afternoon. We will also be having Katherine from the University of Maine Cooperative Extension / Master Gardener Volunteer program coming by in the next few weeks to check out the garden.

Harvest & Garden Updates - We took in a ton of lettuce, herbs and radish this morning. We also took a smaller squash over to Stratton/Eustis along with some broccoli. I think we might need to put the broccoli leaves in a hair tie soon as they seem to be getting a bit bleached from the sun.

Recipes - If anyone has any other recipes for crops we are growing, please send them along. Becky thought it could be helpful to accompany some of the things we are sending up north with ideas for cooking, etc.

Hello - I hope everyone had a nice Fourth!

Volunteering - we are fully covered for July, but still looking for folks to claim the second half of August. Thank you Nobuko and Chris for stepping up last week for watering duties.

Harvesting - we are still mostly working on herbs and lettuce. We did ship up about eight radishes as well, which looked really healthy! We will have squash, peppers, beans, peas, tomatoes and a few others to ship up to Stratton/Eustis soon.

Pruning/Weeding/Pests - It looks like the squash can use some regular attention. Each plant has one or two showing early signs of rot that need removing every so often. Otherwise, the stronger squash are coming in really well! And no signs of vine borers like last year. Knock on wood!

Dawn and Pink spotted the source of our aphid problem - the lupines at the edge of the garden. Everyone came together and moved swiftly to spray and remove.

Thank you Chris for handling some heavy lifting last week, including cleaning out and reassembling the compost bucket near the shed.

Happy Sunday! Things are really starting to pick up :)

Orientation Part 2 Reminder: Tomorrow at 9am we are going to have one more orientation/meeting with anyone who is interested in volunteering this year.

Volunteering Update: Thank you so much for all your eagerness and cooperation so far this year. We have the calendar almost filled out, with some gaps in July remaining.

The Good: I checked in a couple times this week and things are looking great! We survived a dry/heat spell swimmingly thanks to Becky's patrol. It looks like Becky and Chris also chipped in thinning out some of the radishes and turnips, as well as caged and tied up tomatoes. We could always use more tomato cages, by the way. Also, did I mention our first tomatoes are already coming in?!

Not So Good: We have started to see some pests in the mix, perhaps thanks to the rain yesterday. Ants are taking advantage of all the great flowering our squash plants are doing. Upon further inspection, aphids were indeed present! I squished the ones I could, but we may need to consider stronger methods if they persist.

Hops: I also thought I would draw attention to a fun addition to the garden this year - hops! We have two brown planters you may notice that have started to sprout hop bines. They may look and grow like weeds, but please do not remove them.

Hello gardeners! Here's my first attempt at a semi-regular garden email update. I've included some photos of folks working on the garden and the progress that has already been made since June 2 planting. Thank you for everyone's help so far!

This week's garden troubleshooting topic: Why are our celery leaves turning yellow? We'd love to hear anyone's thoughts!

Volunteer orientation: Thank you to those who joined us this morning for volunteer orientation. We will be holding one more session on June 30 @ 9am for anyone interested in learning more.

Community impact: We hope to harvest as much as possible this year to donate to our food pantry partner in Stratton/Eustis while promoting communal gardening and sustainability. We've sent over two pounds of lettuce and herbs already with much more to come!

Volunteer opportunities: Sign up to be responsible for having eyes on the garden. We are looking for people to select 3-7 days at a time to cover us from July through September. Additional responsibilities include watering, harvesting support, and weeding/pest management.

If you run into any issues or have any questions, please email me directly. Lastly - if you know of anyone interested in helping out this year, please have them contact me. Thank you!