Sept 29 - Oct 3, 2014 CVG Progress and and Upcoming Organized Work Opportunities

This week's 65 lbs of harvest donations:
to The Salvation Army = 17 lbs;
to the Collierville Food Pantry = 20 lbs;
to Ms. Ruth, Ms. Julia, and the neighbors in Harris Cove, Collierville = 28 lbs

Total YTD harvest donation = 2,222 lbs

Next Week's Organized Work Opportunities:

Tuesday Oct 6: 8:30 am - 10:30 am -- Continue garden and compost area maintenance, Fall planting, continue the Harlequin Bug glove-to-bug combat
Thursday Oct 9:  8:00 am - 10 am -- Harvest and deliver to Collierville Food Pantry, continue Fall planting if necessary

Wish List for the Garden/Opportunities to work on your own time:

* Yard bags of pine needles for the cinderblock walkways
*  Clean and oil the garden tools located in the shed in the compost area
*  Unused house shingles that we use to wrap the wood edging around the outer edge of garden
*  Bat house / Robin nest platforms/Bird bath
*  Goldfinch nyjer seed sock/feeder
*  Seasoned manure

Upcoming Educational Visits:

Monday Oct 20, 9:30 am - 1 pm -- 6 classes of a total of 130+ Collierville Elementary 3rd graders and many of their parents to visit/tour the Garden. We are going to need a minimum of 10 volunteers to co-lead 5 different stations discussing the following topics with the 3rd graders: Plant Parts, Plant Adaptions, Plant Life Cycle, CVG Garden Tour, and Composting. Please let Stephanie know as soon as possible if you are able to attend and which topics interest you the most.

CVG in the Press:

Carl's column in the Collierville Herald this week!:

This week's Work Progress:

On Monday, Val, Patree, and Stephanie harvested 17 lbs of tender turnip greens, eggplants, hot peppers, green beans, tomatoes, and purple hull peas. Patree delivered to The Salvation Army in Memphis. Val and Stephanie placed some weed guard down in plot 3 and started topping it with straw until stymied by fire ants. Stephanie hand-watered where necessary and spread ant bait. Val harvested zinnias for Baptist Hospital Collierville. Stephanie made some more garlic spray using split garlic grown in the garden and worked on admin paperwork.

On Tuesday, Larry loosened and weeded half of the raised beds in plot 1then Carl sowed curly leaf mustard seeds. Carl mowed around the garden and Stephanie harvested comfrey and added some of it to the barrel composters. She pulled a few marigold plants from plot 2 cinderblock holes that were blocking the overhead irrigation from reaching the turnip and cabbage plants. She adjusted the sprinklers in zone 2 (front of the garden) in order to try to optimize the spray then sprayed the garlic juice on the plot 5 large cinderblock bed turnips and central bed cabbages. She saw a new monarch emerge from a chrysalis! She continued admin work.

On Wednesday, Stephanie prepared for the big "Roots and Shoots" Garden Club from Crosswind Elementary. That evening Arlene, Dianne, Twila, Val, Judy and Stephanie hosted 30+ students at the garden. Through playing a Garden Bingo game, the students completed garden tasks such as weeding, planting, seeding, harvesting, and learning garden facts. By the end of the visit, the students harvested 20 lbs of produce and a huge bunch of zinnias.

On Thursday, Teresa and Stephanie harvested 28 lbs of turnips, purple hull peas, green beans, peppers, a few green tomatoes, and one cantaloupe. Teresa pulled all the pea vines in plot 1 and disposed of the vines. Stephanie delivered the produce to the Collierville Food Pantry and Harris Cove and the zinnias to the Collierville Burch Library. Teresa and Val moved 5 wagons full of the delivered pro-mix (thank you Jim!) to the non-seeded raised beds in plot 1 and 4. They mixed the pro-mix in then planted onion seeds and radishes in half of the southern most wooden raised bed in plot 1. In the half of the raised bed that did have comfrey, they planted beets. And they sowed a few more beet seeds in the plot 4 raised bed nearest the central walkway.

On Friday, Twila walked through the Garden after the weather blew through overnight. She picked up the tomato plants that had been blown over and refilled the mealworm feeder.

This week's Beauty in the Garden: