Inside Brian's Garden

October 10, 2024

Thanks to October 3rd Work Party Volunteers!

It was a small, yet mighty, team…Mark, Lys, Denny and Amber!

They prepped and planted the garlic bed! Music and Transylvania varieties from Great Northern Garlic. A mystery variety from Territorial Seeds. Some of the bulbs we saved from this years Brian’s Garden harvest. And we have room for a couple more rows if anyone has extra garlic they want to bring to the garden to plant… Mark, perhaps try an organic store-bought variety?

They also took down the cucumbers that were no longer producing and tucked the trellises away for the winter. More radishes were planted and perennial flowers were transplanted. And there is always weeding to be done!

And Aaron, the property owner, helped us move some fence panels over to where we will build the toilet enclosure. We are grateful to be able to reuse material from the property for this project. Aaron also said he will help us dig footings with his tractor!

After harvest on Monday, Mark stayed to prep some beds so they will be ready for cover crop seed tomorrow.

Tasks for October 10th Work Party

Planting:

• Mache (HIGH PRIORITY)
• seed in beds (north ends of Beds 4S and 5S)
• Cover Crops (HIGH PRIORITY)
• inoculate any legume seed with inoculant before planting and plant seeds very densely to cover all areas of the soil
• seed in south ends of Beds 4N and 5N
• seed in south ends of Beds 4S and 5S
• Fava Beans
• treat with legume innoculant before planting
• prepare beds for planting (remove all plant material and amend soil with compost)
• north ends of Beds 4N and 5N (after cucumbers are removed)
• entire Bed 9 (after zucchini is removed)
• plant spacing = 3 inches in rows with rows at least 12 inches apart
• Spring Flowering Bulbs ??
• if anyone has any of the following bulbs to share, please let us know and we can add them to the garden for spring blooming bulbs!
• examples: Lily, Daffodil, Iris, Trillium, Grape Hyacinth, Tulips

**Here is a great little video about inoculation and why it is important: What Is Innoculant? And Why To Use It For Garden Legumes?.

Groundskeeping: 

• continue weeding and adding chicken-wire to outside north-fence line and sheet mulch along fence afterwards
• weed in between double fence-line (east side of garden)
• weed aisles and add additional hog fuel to sparse aisles
• continue weeding behind the chicken coop, add cardboard and hog fuel to sheet mulch the entire area
• (HIGH PRIORITY) determine where we will be placing the privacy fence for the toilet enclosure 

Plant maintenance: (HIGH PRIORITY) 

• water plants in grow bags
• remove any plants that are no longer producing
• cucumbers
• beans?

Preparing for Fall and Winter

We just planted and will plant a few more crops that will be great for fall and winter harvest: spinach, collards, kohlrabi, arugula, radishes, Asian greens/bok choi and lettuces. 

Purple sprouting broccoli is planted in Bed 8S and will overwinter here. Watercress will also be left to overwinter.

We will keep existing plants like kale and chard in the ground as long as we can still harvest from these plants. 

Other beds will slowly stop producing and we will remove those plants. We will then plant cover crops in these beds. We will seed cover crop mix blends, as well as seed some mache and fava beans as cover crops, too.

After the cucurbits in Beds 4S, 5S and 6S and the tomatoes in Bed 7S have been removed, we will begin our compost bin project. This will entail us removing the material from all three bins and initiating the three-bin process.

We hope you can join us in the garden to maintain this wonderful food hub!

- Amber, Lys and Denny
Co-managers at Brian's Food Bank Garden