OUR GREEN THUMB GARDENS
The End of the Gardening Season 2011
By Ivan Krupit
It is always the New Jersey Tomato that winds up as KING of any garden, which includes many different varieties from the Beefsteak Tomato to Grape Tomatoes. With the heat wave that we had, you had to constantly water your garden, usually, either in the early morning, or towards evening so that the water will better soak into the soil. If you do it during the day, the heat of the sun will quickly burn it off.
Yes, we did get some heavy rains, which did encourage the weeds to begin to grow in profusion, but if you pull them out early enough, your plantings will continue to thrive. Allow them to linger, the weeds grow larger and larger and gradually take over your garden. So if you get to your garden after a good nights rest, your chances are best to accomplish this unwelcome chore.
For some of us, it was a sad season, but I did notice that the gardeners that raised their gardens, had a better chance for their vegetables to grow larger, and so through trail error, and begin to learn a few tricks of your own, of which a raised garden is only one of them, yes, it is hard work to add more soil but it certainly helps.
To try and reduce the weed problem, and after you have prepared the garden for planting, try putting down a newspaper mat on top of the soil that you have prepared, then add a light layer of soil on top to hold the paper down. When planting early next season, dig a small hole thru the paper and set up your seedling. Hopefully, with this method you can possibly reduce the weed problem in your garden.
NOW, may also be good time to add a load of fertilizer and let it sink into the soil.
As arranged previously, two gardeners will be leaving the Green Thumb Gardens and the next two gardeners on our waiting list will be ready to take their place, but this is subject to change since we are always checking out any unused gardens with the applicants.
The basic rules haven't changed, the GREEN THUMB GARDENS ARE FOR COVERED BRIDGE RESIDENTS ONLY and are in good physical condition to maintain their gardens.
In any event, we wish our gardeners a healthy and happy new year, a productive garden for the next season.