PAR Davies Update 10-30-12

Note:  Kay McAdams, who has been the PAR Davies leader since inception, has "retired" to focus on family concerns.  Dianne Parks (yes, our very own from Dianne's Journey) has stepped into those ginormous shoes.  Kay, thank you for everything you've done over the past four (?) years.  It's too much to even think about and our thanks are feeble in comparison.  Dianne, welcome!  We know you'll do great.

Also note:  We focus on PAR Davies in this blog because PAR CVG (Collierville Victory Garden) has its own site run by the incomparable Carl Wayne Hardeman.  We encourage you to subscribe to that blog as well.  At this time the PAR garden at Shelby Farms doesn't have a regular reporter.

Noto bene (that's Latin for "Note Well!"):  Total pounds of food contributed to local food banks and shelters from our three PAR gardens, to date, is 

9,136  !!!!

And now, for Dianne's first report:

Virginia in the experimental bed harvesting curly red lettuce

Hi everyone….what an enjoyable time harvesting so many veggies. Our workers were Virginia and Bob Vierkandt, Bob Hathaway, Tay Chaffin, Suzanne (and Eli) Allen, GA Crosby, Janet Futrell, Jackie Mahon, Marta St. John, Cathy Cuenin and myself. We harvested 34 lbs today, which included radishes, butter beans, lots of different lettuces, hot peppers, cabbage, turnip greens, kale and herbs. GA brought some turnips from his garden, and all was taken to the women's shelter. The last of the strawberry runners were transplanted and all of the strawberries were mulched with straw. We could actually expect a few quarts of strawberries next year with all the new transplants. Virginia checked for cabbage worms and sprayed again, but they were disappearing after last week's spraying. We just harvested 3 heads of cabbage, but more will be ready next week. 

Cabbages will be ready next week

We pulled up some romaine heads and cut a lot of the different varieties of leaf lettuce. The last of the radishes were pulled. Bob had pulled most of the pole beans up and put in the compost, and the rest of the fence was cleaned off today, in addition to some general weeding.

GA and Cathy harvesting 7-Top turnip greens

We will continue to plant the garlic. Bob is going to start gathering leaves from the grounds for us to shred. We discussed gardening 'under cover' this winter. Sharon and Russ volunteered to start some Baby Romaine seedlings. We could cover the big leaf lettuce bed and see if we can keep this from freezing, in addition to trying some direct seeding of carrots and mustard greens just to see if they would emerge under cover. Bob will check the barn to see if we have what we need for this. This is a big experiment. I feel good that we are trying it, rather than continuing to talk about doing it and wondering if it will work!! We are not putting in huge plantings, so not much will be lost if it all freezes.

Eli Allen (aka PAR DOG) harvesting romaine

The garden will be open this Saturday from 10 to 4 during the Quilt Show at Hillwood. Today several signed up to be tour guides: Bob Hathaway, Jackie Mahon, Marta St. John, Janet Futrell and Tay Chaffin. I will be at Hillwood and encourage people to check out our beautiful fall crops.

'Til next week.

Dianne