Breaks Aren't Always Breaks! 12/30/2011
It is winter break for Monmouth College students right now, but some Garden House members are working hard getting the MCEG ready for the next year! Updating the website, contacting community members, studying companion planting, and brainstorming possible projects are just a few of the things we are working on. The first garden house meeting will be on Saturday, January 21st in the morning (show up at your convenience, but meeting starts around 8 AM). Want to take a peek at some of our plans? Community Outreach: -Seed sharing with Lincoln Homes -Knox Eco House/ Gardens -Free garden tilling Possible Projects: -Square foot gardens in the front yard of the house -Cold frames -Biochar -Grey water systems in the house -Driveway trellises -Vertical growing (gutter gardens, scrap gardens) -Window plants -Climbing plants -More laundry lines -Vertical succulent gardents -Efficient harvesting systems Have any ideas? Leave a comment! Add Comment A Second Spring, and Approaching Fall 10/17/2011
Hello friends, I went out in the garden today and was pleasantly surprised; it looks and feels like spring. The asparagus has sprouted new shafts right along side the old dead ones, the tomatoes are flowering and producing quite the bounty, the brussel sprouts are trucking (slowly, to my distaste), and our late crop of peppers are becoming pretty lush! Along side these pseudo-spring growths though, comes a crop of the fall: green manure or cover crop. After throwing the seed by hand, raking the soil a bit, and placing a row cover on the bed, the seeds have started to sprout. The cover crop should get to be about three inches tall before frost and then will get plowed under next spring. Just a heads up, we will no longer have Documentaries and Discussions on Thursday nights. Instead we will have discussions and meetings in Wallace 102. We feel sufficiently educated (for the time being) and want to start making changes on campus. Farewell, Will Today's Update... 10/11/2011
Hello All, As the last day of fall break was today, The Garden Crew took it easy...meaning we harvested broccoli, eggplant, and tomatoes to make some delicious pizza!  Unfortunately in the harvesting process, we saw some bad news. The spotted cucumber beetles have moved to the pumpkins. So this makes the zuchinni, pumpkins, and lettuce. Plus squash bugs on the tomatoes. Something's gotta give. In other news, broccoli needs picked (so pick away for yourself!) and the tomatoes need harvested (as usual)....and now, some pictures!            And in other news, The Garden Crew filed a member roster and proposed a constitution with the Leadership Development Office today. Wish us luck! Solar Panels at Monmouth College...What!? 10/10/2011
 That's right, folks! The solar panels are up! Come over and take a look at them. They are located towards the back left of the garden, near the apartments. They are going to be used to power the water pump. Pretty cool stuff. Seven o'clock hits like a brick. But somehow we managed to scamper out of bed into the warm light of the kitchen. First, we make maple syrup and oatmeal bread, minus the maple syrup and with an addition of honey. Then moved on to our good friend Appleacea Butterus. Commonly known as butter of the apple. We successfully canned nine pints and accidentally gave one to a fellow Garden Crew member. Never start a conversation about your canning success with, "Look what we made!" Believe us. Please. Oh, I wonder who it could be...  So moving right along, we then learned about potential energy while learning how to pump water into the water barrels. They are now full and ready to be used to water the plants. Since our watering system is a low-pressure system, Brad Sturgeon suggested that we utilize an irrigation system such as troughs and/or drip hoses. Considering for next year. We then harvested about seventeen pounds of tomatoes and having our share of picking, we we went inside to continue our canning venture. But while outside, we discovered that on top of the spotted cucumber beetles attacking our squash, they are now attacking our greens. Weird thing: we also discovered squash bugs on our tomato plants.  We aren't too worried about the squash bugs on the tomatoes; our main concern pest-wise is the spotted cucumber beetle. Still looking into how to deal with that problem.... But back to our canning venture: we canned spiced apples using a recipe given to us by Trudi Peterson. It includes eight parts water, two parts lemon juice, ginger, clove, allspice berries, cinnamon, cardamon pods, and salt. Do not cook the apples too long because they get soggy and fall apart (they still taste great). After canning all of the apple slices, we canned the remaining juice for apple cider (we ended up getting 2 quarts)! We also used five apples to make apple chutney, but used white sugar instead of brown sugar. The final count was two and a half pints. With the tomatoes we harvested, mentioned above, we made two types of barbecue sauce; the only difference between the two is the color of the tomatoes, though, red and yellow. Not having chili peppers, we used Hungarian wax and habanero peppers. We charred them over the open stove. We also added Giardiniera and chili pepper in addition to our recipe (which can be found in Put 'em up! by Sherri Brooks Vinton). The sauce tastes wonderful! First, the sauce soothes you with a sweet fist, then it knocks you off your feet with a hot one! We are going to puree and can the sauce soon. This will probably make us about eight pints. Also, it all looks like real BBQ sauce... That's all we have for now, folks! With Love, The Jolly Gardeners (Will & Emery) October 8: The Plague is Upon Us 10/08/2011
Will and Emery were parading the grounds of the glorious, green Monmouth College Educational Garden today and stricken with grief and horror at the site of a half-eaten baby zuchinni! Upon further inspection, they found the gaping holes were induced by a large amount of SPOTTED CUCUMBER BEETLES! Perhaps you are wondering what this creature looks like. Well, folks, here is the culprit:  As you can see, it looks like the demon from the planet Zeptune!!! We are currently investigating safe and organic measures for ultimate destruction of the invertebrate-that-shall-not-be-named....we will keep you posted on the matter. In other news, the green peppers are looking quite fabulous. We have to make sure that we do not continue robbing the cradle. A week of untouched growth will provide us with juicy, succulent, healthy, vegetarianly meaty, and bountiful peppers. The Alpine strawberries are blooming again (Yay, god, for ever-bearing plants!!). The greens are coming in luciously and beans from the previous planting have even sprouted up between the rows to become friends with the garden mixes. Unfortunately, the devious rabbits have been hard at work in regards to chomping down our spinach. Our number of troops have dwindled and now stand at two solitary spinach soldiers...the shame. This provides us with wonderful hindsight: plant the spinach in ways that you can put row covers on and then put them on, even if you think you don't have to. Also, as a last note, before you start making any type of cooked apple preserve, make sure to have either (a) an apple peeler (like the machine, not like a vegetable peeler, as Emery once naively thought) OR (b) a mill (which is quite fun). At this point in time, we are equipped with neither. Our mission to find one of these options continues as our apples sit untouched, but not unsmelled, on our kitchen counter. Greenly and Sincerely, Emery and Will (the rest of The Garden Crew are out gallivanting on fall break, bums) 9/12-23 10/06/2011
Harvested tomatoes- pick tomatoes of ground to keep bugs away Fixed compost- do not put anything on first layer compost unless in dirt/green layers Weeded asparagus, beans, radishes, squash, berries Pulled bush beans Built fire pit Helios- make sure slices of tomatoes are less than a forth of an inch Tours for ILA- make sure to break up into smaller groups and consult written tour for what to say Watered- peppers, basil, HT, and anything that is needed (severe drought) Harvest broccoli and cauliflower- whenever they look done Harvested pole beans- this is the second harvest and looks like we will have a third Dead headed basil- try and stay on top of this, it gets out of hand quickly | THE GARDEN LOGSee what The Garden Crew has learned from its experiences in the MCEG and beyond! Perhaps our information will help you. Or perhaps you can give us a few pointers! Either way, don't forget to "like" posts and feel free to comment away... ARCHIVESTOPICSAll |
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