UMW Garden Project

As you can see I have not written a great deal regarding the garden.  In July I gave birth to my first child.  As a result the garden became and community or rather a family project.  Not only did my husband water and care for the garden, but my inlaws, my parents and my sister all got their chance in turn.  I will soon be putting together a post of the things I learned this first year of the garden.  In the mean time check out the Southern Seed Exchange.  I have been enjoying reading their newsletter and hope to be able to attend one of their events sometime. 

Happy Gardening.

Good Morning Fellow Gardeners,

Some of you may have seen in this mornings’ Free Lance Star the short article about the garden by Emily Battle.   You can check out the article on line at http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/072010/07072010/559067

Update on the garden:

In spite of the intense heat these past few days the plants are doing well.  The Cubanelle Pepper has 2 peppers growing on it.  I have a number of tomatoes and many more flowers on the tomato plants.  The sweet potatoes and cucumber are hanging in there in spite of the damage done by Big Boy.  I am holding out hope that these plants will survive the heat and perhaps produce some late fruit.  The zucchini plant was nibbled on by Big Boy, but still has 3 blooms on it.  We will see how it fares in the coming days.

I have harvested some herbs in the last couple of days.  My husband and I enjoyed some of the chive on baked potatoes and some cilantro in guacamole.  I can hardly believe how quickly these plants grew back.  In another week I will likely be able to harvest again.

Happy Gardening!

Some of my readers may think, “it’s great that she is working on this garden project, but I live in an apartment and don’t have space for a garden.”  In an attempt to make this blog applicable to all readers, yesterday I planted a herb garden in containers on my balcony.  In two pots I planted 2 Italian basil plants, and 1 plant each of the following; lavender, oregano, dill, cilantro, parsley, and chive.  I will keep you posted on how this project is coming.  If it does well I will have to do some research on how to dry herbs.  Any information anyone has on this topic would be greatly appreciated.

Update on Veggie Garden:

I picked another cherry tomato today.  The first 2 were very tasty.  I decided to pick a pepper from the Big Daddy Hybrid Sweet Pepper.  It was stunting the growth of the plant.  I am hopeful that in the next week or so I will see some drastic growth on this plant as a result.  I will keep you posted.  Happy Gardening!

Sunday I picked the first fruit from the garden, 2 Cherry Tomatoes.   This was very exciting.  Close inspection of the plants showed that there is 1 pepper on the Big Daddy Hybrid plant, 1 tomato on the Early Girl plant, and one cucumber.  Additionally, the sweet potato plants had gone crazy and were vining all over the place.  I began thinking I might need to get a trellis in place to maintain them.  I rejoiced at seeing so much bounty after getting such a late start.  I rejoiced too soon.  Monday evening I went out to water the garden and I arrived just in time to scare away a rodent.  Not your average field mouse, but a HUGE ground hog.  As I approached  it scampered away, still clasping a leaf from one of the sweet potato plants in it’s mouth.  Inspection of the garden showed that 3 sweet potato plants were completely stripped of their leaves.  I was shocked.  How could that varmint do this to MY garden.  After the initial shock wore off I set to tending to the remaining plants.  I set up the sprinkler and used my rake to break up the soil around the plants to ensure good water saturation.  Upon finishing tilling the top layer of soil I decided to investigate the area into which I had seen the gopher disappear while the watering process finished up.  To my Horror! the gopher was sitting there, under the bush, looking at me just waiting for me to leave so he could, I feared, return and finish off my poor helpless sweet potato plants.  I approached trying to get a picture and the ground hog retreated back into the bush.  I returned to my garden.  A few minutes later I noticed the ground hog was back, just watching me and waiting.  When I was done tending the garden for the evening I retreated a ways to see if the ground hog would emerge from hiding and return to my garden.  While the gopher did emerge, it did not immediately return to my garden.  However, inspection of the garden this morning confirms my fear.  The ground hog did return and dined on tender leaves of sweet potato.  Not a single sweet potato plant was left untouched.  Research on ground hog and how to get rid of them this morning indicated that one way to get rid of ground hog naturally is to get fox urine and place around gardena and teh entrances to the ground hogs den.  I am now in the market for fox urine to place in the garden as a deterrent.  The moral of this blog according to my dad is “you always have to plant enough for the varmints to have their share.”  Happy Gardening!

Not much to report except that the plants have been purchased and planted.  For additional information on the plants selected check out the plantings page.  You will see that the variety of plants is somewhat limited due to the lateness of the season for planting a garden.  Hopefully I can get an earlier start with plant selection for the fall season.

Good news!  The garden plot has been approved.  I will have a very small plot of earth in which to plant a few plants.  This week I will be shopping for plants and working to get them in the ground.  Keep your fingers crossed that with getting such a late start I will be able to harvest at least a small crop.

My name is Bethany Friesner and I will be using this blog to chronicle what one person, myeslf, can sow and harvest in one summers time.  A little bit of background about myself.  My interest in garding started at an early age.  I come from a family of farmers.  I can remember working with my mom and dad in our yard tilling, planting, and reaping from a relatively early age.  While I was away at college my family moved back to the family farm.  I spent the summer harvesting wheat and serving as head swather opperator.  As an ecology major I became very interested in the environment and sustainable practices and have worked along with my husband to make decisions in my life that are relatively sustainable, such as walking to the grocery store and most other places as well as brushing my teeth with less than 1 cup of water.  Over the past couple of years I have become interested in locally grown produce and have decided that home grown is about as local as you can get.  Thus, I have decided to create the UMW Garden Project to chronicle what I can sow and harvest this summer.  Currently I live and work on a college campus.  Thus, to begin the project today I contacted the director of grounds on campus to request a patch of land in which to plant my garden.  I will let you know what I hear back from her.  Keep your fingers crossed.