Hard To Pull The Plug

It’s getting to be that time when we need to start preparing our beds, the beds that need it the most are the tomatoes, and peppers, and they just are not finished giving to us yet, but if I want to see a winter crop and late fall crop I am behind the eight ball ! Kale is back in as is our rapini broccoli, but the garlic needs to be put in along with leeks, carrots, walking onions, and a host of other veggies like beets, cabbage, and Kohlrabi. Here’s a pic of more peppers picked today and there are plenty more, not to mention we have tomatoes still ripening.

assorted peppers

 

Planting Kale

The bed for the Kale is prepped and planted ! Half the bed is planted with Improved Siberian Kale and half with Dinosaur Kale, we love kale around here and hope to provide the local pantry with a good size load this winter if all goes well. time to start getting together the parts for the hoops and reconditioning the cold frame. Will post some pictures later of our progress !

Turning the Soil

Time for us to turn the soil over in some of our raised bed and cover with organic compost, and plan the next planting. A friend of ours is going to take the corn stalks from our organic sweet corn we harvested, and give them to his cows, he says its like candy to them. Glad we could make that part of recycling complete, well almost, the cows haven’t eaten them yet ! We are going to plant Kale in where the corn was, I haven’t picked out which Kale it will be, but will let you know as soon as we decide. Heres a picture of the corn stalks!

Organic Sweet Corn Stalks, ready do be cut down and given to those cows to make fertilizer out of !

The Seed Project

So it’s time to go through hundreds of seed packs donated by our friend Katie who works for Renee’s Garden, http://www.reneesgarden.com, I need to split them up between Giving Vegetable Gardens Charity and Lettuce Grow Garden Foundation. If you need seeds for your garden you can get a hold of us and we will try accommodate you. If you can donate to our cause, cool, if not, that’s OK too, because it’s all about growing food naturally and sharing that food with the people that wouldn’t normally have the chance to get it !

God Bless

September Gardening

Time to pick your over wintering crops if you haven’t already, and get them in the ground ! we will be putting up small hoops to cover some of the raised beds but not all of them. We will be planting a variety of veggies to fill in the rotations.  Carrots, Cabbage, Arugula, Radish, Snow Peas, Fava Beans, Beets, Spinach and some lettuces. It’s all in the timing and weather. I love to experiment with trying to grow different types of vegetables when you normally would not even think about it, but it’s fun to try to control soil temp. and regulate air temp. with small to large cold frames and hoop houses over beds. Growing fresh food should be fun and you shouldn’t be restricted by some book or other information vehicle, use  your imagination and try new growing techniques outside the norm, that’s how we find new ways of producing a crop that you wouldn’t normally have in a particular season.   Good TInES and happy gardening !

Keep us in the loop as to what works for you !

Cheers

Bob

Interview at KBOO Raido with Leigh Ann Kranz

Interview at KBOO Raido with Leigh Ann Kranz.

Interview at KBOO Raido with Leigh Ann Kranz

It was really nice to be able to go on the radio at KBOO and talk about sustainable gardening in and out of the prison system, but what was even more exciting for me, was the opportunity to talk about   “Giving Vegetable Gardens Charity”  and what we are trying to do , feeding less fortunate people naturally grown vegetables and fruits for no cost. And now with the help of Michelle Greely and her naturally grown fruit trees we can balance out the whole fruit and vegetable giving. It was really generous of Leigh Ann to give us an open invitation to come back on her show “Bread and Roses” to give updates and announcements ! Leigh Ann is a special person with great insight on interviewing, she made me feel really comfortable in a setting that was unfamiliar. She also told me that being on public radio is something that I might want to pursue, it would be a great way to get people involved with the “cause”. You see it isn’t about “me”, it’s about the people that don’t have or can’t get food grown with organic practices, food that’s grown naturally with no GMO’s , and the like. We really need feed back and ideas on how we can be better equipped at solving this huge problem. Taking back what we eat into our own hands is what really needs to happen, forming small networked co ops in our neighborhoods is what will change the way we look at food. Helping us and others to create neighborhood food banks filled with naturally grown foods is essential for healthier eating !

Bell Peppers

Katy stopping buy to get some fresh veggies for her families dinner! Working together to make sure everyone has access to naturally grown foods!!

Do you need some fresh naturally grown vegetables ?

Here at Giving Vegetables we want to try to make foods grown with organic practices available to everyone possible ! Our gardens my not be huge, but they produce enough naturally grown vegetables that we can share what we grow with the people who really need it. We have had such an overwhelming response to the gardens that we are readying our 3000 square feet of space in Oregon City. Thanks to Recology and their generous donation of compost, we hope to have at least half the plot planted next spring, if not all of it. If you need some veggies ? Get a hold of us and we will work with you to get you a share of what we have!

 

Enjoying the Bounty

Many families are helped by the Giving Vegetable Gardens Charity