October Work Day - Harvest and Clean Up

Our 2011 growing season has ended and we had several gardeners on hand to assist in garden and plot clean up. We trimmed back the hedge perimeter, cut back the knock out roses, cleaned out individual and sponsor plots and added a good layer of mulch to the plots. Several gardeners even planted garlic to winter over. The weather was perfect for our last work day, and we ended the work day with a lunch of cheese broccoli soup and bread pudding.

Thank you to all of our gardeners for another successful year (even with the scorching summer!) For those that weren't able to make it, please remember to have your plot cleaned out by Thanksgiving.

Have a great fall and winter and we'll see you all back in the spring!

2011 Kid's Fall Social

We had a beautiful fall morning and a great turnout for our second annual Kid's Fall Social at OFW Community Garden. The garden offers 2 events per year free to children. Thank you to everyone who makes these events possible by helping our various fundraisers throughout the year!

Kids of all ages got to decorate mini-pumpkins, participate in a corn-on-the-cob eating contest, spit watermelon seeds and enjoy lunch in the garden with their families and new friends. The kids also learned about how composting works and had fun flinging cobs and rinds into the compost bin. Thank you to all that participated and we look forward to seeing you in the garden again!

Community Garden Fall Social Saturday October 15th!

July 2011 Garden Work Day

A minor break in the heat wave welcomed our gardeners yesterday morning, although it wasn't much relief. Julia, Gail, Irma, Sharon, Dwayne, Brian, and Dot joined us (along with the kids of course!) to a morning of weeding and mulching. How do weeds thrive so well in this heat!?! Larry and Brian worked on the tool shed and finished the roof. Many of our vegetables have not fared well in this heat. However the peppers are loving it! One thing that we've noticed is that people in the area have been picking vegetables from the individual plots. We'll have to put up a sign that says, "If you didn't plant it, please don't pick it."

We ended our day with a fantastic lunch for a hot day just as rain clouds rolled in. Julia prepared a build-it-yourself taco salad with all the fixings, and made  too good to be true blueberry lemon bars. Brian thought it was too hot to eat, but the rest of us shook our head at him as our mouths were too full to talk.

Thanks to everyone for their sweat equity (literally!) at the garden. We're all looking forward to the cooler days of fall planting!

June 2011 Garden Work Day

 

 

Beautiful weather greeted our morning workers and we managed to finish before the rain started. Dwayne, Freddie, Dot, Sue, Gail, Brian, Trudy, Julia and Irma all helped with weeding and general maintenance. Freddie tilled the community area, and Larry worked on the roof of the tool shed. Dot provided a wonderful and healthy lunch (our favorite part of the work days!) and as usual, with our bellies full, we called the day a success.

The Jolley Trolley and the Ferguson Bicyclers came by for a tour, and we all played tour guides for a bit. It's always fun to show off our progress and hard work.

Thank you to everyone who helped, and those that came by to see what we have done in only our second growing season!!!!

May 2011 Garden Work Day

With lunch provided by Heidi and Martin (and fresh strawberry pie with strawberries from the garden!), many gardeners came out for some wheel-barrow fun and a cool morning to clean up the garden and enjoy the company of others. If only every workday could be cool and overcast! Thanks to everyone including Dwayne, Freddie, Sue, Gail, Irma and her sister, Gina and Clarence, Dot, Julia, Emily, Ed, Linda and Heidi and Martin. Also thanks to the Bike riders that stopped by, and several individuals just looking and asking questions.

It looks like this will be our first year of apples, and the grapes are tiny babies now, but it looks like we'll get loads of them in the late summer/fall. Perfect for wine making for a community garden get together! Also on the list of potential "finally" items, we may even finish the tool shed this summer!!

Thanks again for everyone supporting in person and in spirit. I can't believe how far this garden has come in such a short time, and kudos for EVERYONE that has made that happen over the past 3 years!

Children's Fun Day at the Garden - Mother's Day gifts

The Children's Fun Day at the OFW Community Garden was so much fun. Kids from all over came to decorate small tin pots and plant a flower for their Mothers or Grandmothers. They also got to see the strawberries growing and see the grapes in their infant stages. Leftover flowers were planted in the children's plots. Kids and adults enjoyed hotdogs, fruit, pasta salad and lemonade. Of course the dirt and the wood chip piles were perfect for playing "King of the Hill." It was too wet to till the community portion to plant sweet corn and the rest of the seeds we had planned, but that didn't deter the good mood of all of those involved. Thank you to all that participated, and we look forward to the next Children's Fun Day in the fall!

Gardeners Welcome Spring (?)

Turning over the beds

Ben checking out the tool shed structure

Overlooking the OFW Garden

Daruby garden before raised beds

Joe standing in front of the new raised beds in the SNOW!

It was time once again for the initial OFW Garden workday on the last Saturday of March. It was a blustery morning, but we managed to get the beds turned over, weeds pulled, (Thanks to Dot who did an excellent job of weeding all the Strawberry beds last week!) and the compost bins turned over. It was nice to be back in the garden among friends even if the weather was chilly! Thanks to Dwayne, Freddie, Martin, Julia, Dot, Brian, Trudy, John and Gail for the hard work and camaraderie.

We cut the morning short, and several of us headed over to Daruby Early Learning Center to assist Gateway Greening and Gail with the installation of 6 raised beds for the preschool. We enjoyed a chili lunch while waiting for the compost and lumber to be delivered. Then we completed our work just as SNOW started accumulating. There is a before and after shot above of Daruby's raised beds. Congrats to Gail and staff on having a proper garden to plant with the children!

We're looking forward to warmer weather on April's workday, and hope to get more planting completed as well as completing the tool shed. Thanks to everyone for their hard work!

October Work Day - Garden Clean Up

Our first official growing season has come to an end. Many of us spent the morning removing tomato and pepper plants from our own beds and sponsor plots, while others helped with the building of our cedar tool shed. It was a beautiful morning to be out in the garden and chatting about what we would all do the same or differently next year.

Thanks to everyone who helped, and a special thank you to Julia for providing our delicious lunch of vegetarian chili and peanut butter and chocolate brownies. In fact, thank you to each of you that provided lunch on our scheduled work days!!

As time permits we plan to finish the tool shed, shred the compost material and put straw down on the strawberries. For all you troopers this year, the good news is that it won't be nearly as much work next season but will still be as fun and rewarding!!!

Fun at the Kid's Fall Social!

Thank you to everyone who helped out and/or attended our inaugural Kid's Fall Social!! The weather was unseasonably warm making it a perfect day for our events.

The kids started off decorating mini pumpkins, doing other crafts and picking some of the garden's ever-bearing strawberries. We then had a couple of rounds of the corn-on-the-cob eating contest. Unfortunately I was laughing too hard to remember to snap any pictures of that one! The children were also shown some of our popcorn harvest and got to sample some fresh organic popcorn. Most were unaware that popcorn grew differently than sweet corn.

A short time later lunch consisting of hot dogs, pasta salad, chips and lemonade was served up to the still mostly hungry children. Next up on the agenda was the watermelon seed spitting contest. The kids had so much fun with it that it stopped being a contest at some point, and just a fun way to remove the seeds from the watermelon they were eating. Four watermelons later there were some sticky yet happy kids, and plenty of rinds thrown in the compost bin.

It was a wonderful turnout and a great way for all ages to spend a Saturday morning. I can't wait for next year's events for the children. They will be the future stewards of our earth so getting them involved and excited is beneficial for everyone!

Beer Dinner Community Gardens Fundraiser Success!

On behalf of the Ferguson Community Gardens (OFW and Robert Superior) I'd like to thank Joe Lonero, Brewmaster Josh Wilson, and the entire staff at Hill's Brewing Company for an amazing fundraiser! Josh paired each of the four courses with a perfect brew. While 8 oz servings accompanied each course, garden supporters were encouraged to try larger samples for free at the bar. As we were leaving, Joe gave each ticket holder a token for a free glass of wine at CORK, compliments of Mike Lonero. I couldn't imagine a more perfect representation of *COMMUNITY* than that night.

The first course was prepared by our resident gardener and executive chef, Freddie Holland. The Tuscan Meatballs on Angel Hair Pasta with Pesto included several ingredients from the gardens. The meatballs were made from Match (vegan meat alternative) and paired perfectly with the Munich Dunkel. The complexity of flavors from both appetizer and beer were the perfect start to an amazing taste sensation.

The next course was a beautiful springtime salad made with candied pecans, fresh strawberries, pineapple and bleu cheese crumbles paired with Hill's Hefeweisen Wheat. The fruit in the salad complemented the banana/clove flavor of the beer. Wonderful!

The main course was a blackened Mahi Mahi on a bed of rice with vegetables on the side. The fish was paired with the St. Louis Pale Ale to bring out both the spiciness of the hops in the beer and the cajun blackened spice.

Finally, the dessert was a gorgeous fresh cheesecake with strawberries paired with the Pecan Brown Ale. Who knew a cheesecake could be MORE delicious with the nuttiness and richness that the Pecan Ale provided?!?!

Thank you for all the garden supporters who were able to attend, and thank you again to Joe for making it all happen!!!!!!

August Work Day Update

Today was a great day to come together with other gardeners and start one of our larger projects: building the tool shed. The finished shed will be a 10x10 red cedar structure. We can't wait to store the wheelbarrows and often used garden tools there soon! We set the four corners in cement this morning and still managed to get so much more finished at the garden by noon.

To make room for some of the fall crops, we pulled the finished corn stalks. Several of us were surprised at how easy they are to pull - *MUCH* easier than some of the weeds we have! We also put down four yards of mulch in the orchard and between the rose bushes and hedge row along Suburban. Heidi Lung brought an apple pie and her prize-winning peach blackberry pie. I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a "pie break" but that's what we took mid-morning! That hit the spot and regenerated us for more mulching and weeding until lunch. Lunch was an enchilada casserole and strawberry walnut salad served on compostable plates.

A very special thank you to everyone that came to the work day and put the "community" in our garden: Dwayne, Freddie, Martin, Julia, Dot, Sharon, Ed, Linda, Chase, Ben, Claire, Jeff, Analia and Teresa. Volunteers of all ages and levels of expertise are what keep us going strong! Thank you all!

July Work Day Progress

Our July workday started early this morning to beat the heat, and the heat never seemed to get out of hand today. We were all a little disheartened to see how much the weeds have grown with all the rain. The orchard was nearly overgrown, and it has garden paper under mulch! Freddie, Martin, Heidi, Sue, Gail, Barbara, Dot, Jeff, and young twins Analia and Teresa helped us tame those summer weeds. It's unbelievable how much a group of hard working folks can accomplish. The orchard, strawberry beds, the hedges and a good part of the gourd patch are back under control. We filled a compost bin FULL of pulled weeds. Wow!

Speaking of control, the produce is LOVING the rain as much as the weeds, and is all growing out of control! We probably picked over 30 lbs of tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, onions and corn. The first picture shows the harvest for the day. Most of that food was dropped off at our local food pantry.

The crowd dwindled by 11:30, but Gail's lunch was well appreciated by those of us left. She made a delicious orzo and spinach salad as well as a fruity, nutty couscous dish. The cookies were a great finishing touch to a hard day's work!

Thanks to everyone who participated and look forward to seeing everyone at the garden!