Collierville Town Square Christmas 2013

Collierville Town Square Christmas 2013

Today was the huge holiday crafts festival done on a Collierville scale. OK we had a blacksmif and a glass blower. Wish we had kids' crafts booths where they could dip candles, make small wreaths, make tree ormanents etc but that seems to be a stretch for the powers that be.

All told we have a beautiful town which is exquisitely maintained. We have excellent leadership. I am and we all should be very proud!!!

But I am never satisfied. I want fairy houses, hummingbird feeders, a Saturday market, and a Christmas market - all on the square.

See pix below.

a mover and a shaker

log cabin facing west side of square

Bible museum north side of square

Da train boss, da train

Depot's west end

McGinnis Service Station and town clock

the glass blower

McGinnis Service Station east side of square

two old fat guys with hats

and then the metalsmith

train approaching the depot platform

north side of square

east end of the square

our prize and only mural

love this memorial

da square

see da yeller empty BNSF train going back to Powder River Basin in WY for another load of low sulfur coal to bring back to Sheffield AL

depot platform for thrills for young and old when trains pass by within a few feet with whistle blowing

south side of depot next to da tracks

now this here is scary I dont care who you are

our water tower named Obi Wan Kenobe

cleanest restrooms in the state

Victory Garden status Thursday December 19 2013

I wish each of you angels a Very Merry Christmas and hope you realize all the wonderful gift of free produce you have grown and donated to charity.

We have done a lot since last report. One of the wonderful/educational/demonstration parts is we garden all twelve months and harvest most months as per this blog entry. Note we have growing now kale, carrots, onyuns, garlic, rutabagas, and collards. 

We gathered and spread out in the garden lots of cardboard (thanks to Patree), bales of straw (thanks to CHS baseball team), and 31 bags of leaves.

Here is a list of the varieties of garlic we planted (clink to see descriptions):

Giant Kettle River 

Elephant 

Chesnok Red

Redneck Wild 

Killarney Red 

Romanian Red 

Georgian Crystal 

St Helen's Red 

Some have begun to sprout:

Wednesday December 18, Patree and Stephanie picked da cabbiges: 257 lbs of Bonnie and Savoy varieties and cleaned and took to da Food Pantry Thursday morning. We also donated 6 large trash bags of outer leaves to Trey Campbell for his free range chickens. We had 4 bags left we strewed on the garden as mulch. All told this was 150 lbs but we aren't counting it in our total.

Stephanie and Patree cleaning cabbiges 

Mr Winchell at Food Pantry accepting da delivery

Beautiful Savoy cabbiges in da back of Opie on da way to da Food Pantry

Thursday Stephanie and I planted 4 bundles of DixonDale yellow candy onyuns. We counted 286 plants. They were planted on either side of 6 inch deep trenches where the Bonnie liquid organic fertilizer was applied. The idea from DixonDale is to grow long deep roots all winter to support large bulbs in da spring. Sposed to be da Good Lord gonna water them in good tomorrow.

Stephanie laid out and planted all 286 onyun sets

one planted bed

Harvest total 2013 to date:

   4,430 lbs + 257 = 4,687 lbsfor 2013!!!!!!!!!!   

 

Finance report:  

  Balance as of 11/12/2013 $576.05. I need to file expense report for the onyun sets.

I am thinking per advice and demonstration by MAMG PAR garden at Davies Plantation (Diane Parks and GA Crosby and Jaime Childers) to do plots 2 and 4 (the middle two) with cinder blocks. Costs about half as much as treated wood. I went and watched (helped some) Wednesday as they built several new raised cinder block beds.

Also thinking about getting 3 hose reels and new hoses (non kink kind) and three new sprinklers. 

Also thinking about getting four new cattle panel trellises.

I have asked the Memphis Area Master Gardeners for $2,100 dollars to do this infrastructure work.

As always your advice is needed and much appreciated.

Thanks,

cw

 

Victory Garden status Satiddy November 30, 2013 Garlic Party

True to southern tradition we planted spring bulks (garlic) the Satiddy after Thanksgiving.

Led by Master Garlic-er Dave Fitzgerald and sons Conor and Aidan, Val, Arlene, Jimmy and I planted 6 varieties of garlic. We planted plot 6 3 cloves wide in four 32 foot rows and ten inches apart and planted 33 elephant garlic in the middle raised bed in plot 4. We expect no vampires again this winter.

Then we put them to bed for the winter with a nice cover of leaves. We also finished mulching plots 2 and 5 with cardboard (thanks Patree) and bags of leaves and grass clippings. 

We plan, Lord willing, to pick the rest of the collards, rutabagas, and cabbiges for the Collierville Food Pantry the last Thursday before Christmas December 19.

Harvest total 2013 to date:

   4,430 lbs for 2013!   

 

Finance report:  

  Balance as of 11/12/2013 $576.05

I am thinking per advice and demonstration by MAMG PAR garden at Davies Plantation (Diane Parks and GA Crosby) to do plots 2 and 4 (te middle two) with cinder blocks. Costs about half as much as treated wood. 

Also thinking about getting 3 hose reels and new hoses (non kink kind) and three new sprinklers. We have enough funds.

As always your advice is needed and much appreciated.

Thanks,

cw

In these pix note our beautiful rich loose humus soil.

Arlene hard at work (see the beautiful soil)

Conor and Aiden and Dave admiring the newly planted and mulched garlic beds

Jimmy and Val hard at work too

Beautiful garden still has carrots turnips cabbiges parsley rutabagas and collards

Val and Jimmy and Dave and Arlene working and me taking pix as usual

Victory Garden status Monday November 25, 2013

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Your volunteer work has paid out bountifully all year but especially this week. Val, Jane, Kathy, Arlene and I picked a pickup truck load of turnips and greens (266 lbs) and took to the Collierville Food Pantry on Thursday.

On Friday Stephanie, Matt, Ed, Ron, and Lisa McGee's Crosswinds Elementary School Roots and Shoots Club picked 645 lbs of turnips and greens and 42 lbs of mustard greens. This was two pickup truck loads which along with the pickup truck load from Germantown church of Christ were distributed in Thanksgiving distribution boxes for 250 families in the inner city. What a blessing we have!

Today Monday November 235, 2013, The Fayette Cares agency picked 34 lbs of collard greens and the last turnips 380 lbs. WOW! These will be distributed to needy families this week.

I plan, Lord willing, to pick the rest of the collards, rutabagas, and cabbiges for the Collierville Food Pantry the last Thursday before Christmas December 19.

Harvest total 2013 to date:

  3,063 to date + 266 + 645 + 42 +34 + 380  = 4,430 lbs for 2013!  Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Finance report:  

  Balance as of 11/12/2013 $576.05

A pome I wrote about picking greens and delivering boxes (actually they came to a church building and picked up the boxes but I dinna know that when I wrote da pome.)

It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving With every turnip we pull;
Take a look in the muddy rows with greens all in rows
Green leaves and purple turnips all aglow.
It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving, Turnips in every box,
But the prettiest sight to see smiling faces that will be at each front door.

 See pix below:

gorgeous turnips and greens

ed and matt bagging

266 lbs to Food Pantry

Crosswinds Roots & Shoots Club

fell off the turnip truck

arlene and val

Kathy and Jane

100 box giveaway in Raleigh

Food Pantry truck was emptied in 15 minutes

Raleigh distribution

midtown distribution 150 boxes

Victory Garden status 11/12/13 Next work day Thursday 11/21/13 7-830am

We had a wonderful opportunity in the garden. Patree, Stephanie, Val, and I picked 72 lbs of kale (3 varieties, 27 lbs curly leaf mustard, and 7 lbs of peppers and aigplants, which I took to Caritas Village http://caritasvillage.org/ , an intown community outreach project. 

This is my old teenage years neighborhood. I drove by the shotgun house where momma and us five kids lived at 2567 Tutwiler. My brother and I had a bunk bed in the enclosed back porch. Looks a lot better nowadays.

Caritas has a nice deli where street people and movers-and-shakers mingle. I had an excellent Greek salad, and a Memphis councilman was entertaining two Asian suits. You should try it and see the good work they are doing with children and the local people.

Whit did his usual beautiful work and mowed the garden.

Harvest total 2013 to date:

  2,957 to date + 106  = 3,063 lbs for 2013!  

 

Finance report:  

  Balance as of 11/12/2013 $576.05

cw
Ain't God good.

Victory Garden Thursday Oct 31 2013, Next work day 8-9am Thursday Nov 07

This has been a fabulous week in the garden. We had beautiful flights of volunteer angels get everything done that needed done ahead of the beautiful soaking rain we are receiving here on Halloween.

On Tuesday Oct 29, 2013 Patree and I picked 103 lbs of turnips and greens which I delivered to Julia Ferguson on Harris Cv. Arrangement was made to coordinate distribution with local NAACP leader Annette Key. We also cleaned out and planted in the raised wooden beds 1 more row of carrots and 3 more rows of spinnich.  We sowed, walked them in, soaked them, and covered them with pieces of carpet to help raise soil temperature to facilitate germination, hoffentlich und Lord willing.

Wednesday a large flight of volunteers (Leah and Anthony, Sue, Val, Patree, Dave, Arlene, and me) picked 180 lbs of turnip greens. Since we were a' picking and a' thinning, there warnt no turnips. I took them to two firemen and two of our benefactors this morning.

Harvest total 2013 to date:

  2,763 To date + 180 + 103 - 89 adjustment  lbs = 2,957 lbs new YTD!  

The adjustment is to use the Memphis Food Bank weight instead of our weight. I believe they were incorrect and let the greens sit for two days and dry out before they weighed them. They picked up a day late then did not weigh for yet another day. Oh well! The Lord giveth. The Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!

 

Finance report:  

  Balance as of 09/12/2013 $662.26

  Expenses for new scales, cabbige dust, weed spray, and replacement containers: 

                                            86.21

  New balance:                     576.05

cw
Ain't God good.

Ms Julia on Harris Cv

New carrot row and spinnich rows plot 4

curly leaf mustard plot 1

plot 2 turnips

plot 3 cabbiges, rutabagas, kale, collards

plot 5 cabbiges and turnips

plot 6 turnips and rutabagas

angels val sue patree dave leah anthony arlene

a pickin and a thinnin

180 lbs reddy to deliver in back of Rocinante