A place to come together to grow food and cultivate neighbors

August 2022 Newsletter

Welcome to the Community Harvest Garden's monthly newsletter.

Find out what's happening in the garden and how you can join us in growing fresh food for yourself and local food pantries. Learn timely garden tips as we go through the year. Happy gardening!

It's Harvest Time!

All the planting and seed sowing done earlier this summer is resulting in an abundance of vegetables. The coming month will show the Community Harvest Garden coming into its own and harvesting will be at its best. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and green beans will be ripening throughout August.

Volunteers are needed to harvest vegetables in the Shared Harvest Bed. We also need volunteers to help deliver these vegetables to the food pantry at Faith Community United Methodist Church (8230 Cox Road, West Chester). Please  contact us if you would like to help.

Guest Gardeners bring beds to life!

Seven Guest Gardeners have been caring for their adopted beds since planting began in late spring and their beds are full of veggies!

Thanks to the hard work of dedicated volunteers, several additional beds have been created for Guest Gardeners to adopt in the 2023 growing season. In the meantime, these beds are being utilized for Shared Harvest donations. We're growing potatoes, sweet potatoes, acorn squash, butternut squash, and cushaw squash. There is also a fence trellis for mini gourds and mini pumpkins which we hope to give to children coming to Christ the King's Trunk or Treat event in October. 

Are you interested in adopting your own garden bed for 2023? We'd love to have you join us! Gardening mentors are available to provide assistance as needed. Contact us for more information.

The Community Harvest Garden needs YOUR help!

It takes a team of people to tend to the garden - watering plants, maintaining the garden beds, harvesting ripe produce, sowing seeds for fall crops. The good news is that NO EXPERIENCE IS NEEDED to help in the garden. ALL AGES AND ABILITIES ARE WELCOME!

You can work in the garden anytime you like, however, if you'd like to join in a group activity, please come out for any of the upcoming Garden Volunteers Workdays. These workdays take place every other Wednesday and Saturday from 9:30-11:30 am. Upcoming dates are July 30,  August 10, 13, 24, 27. We have tools available for you to use, but you're welcome to bring your own. Contact us for more information. 

Ramona's Garden Tips

August is upon us. Schools will be starting back soon, sports practices are already in full swing, the last of summer vacations are happening. And then, there’s our gardens… It has been such a hot and humid summer that many gardens are showing signs of stress. Dying plants, flowering but not producing vegetables, but mainly begging for rain! I am sure your hoses and watering cans have been kept busy with little signs it is helping. Hand watering is always a poor substitute for what Mother Nature provides us when it rains. We water our vegetable plants and flowers, but it has been so dry that the surrounding soils are simply wicking the water away. A good soaking rain is needed.

If you’ve had a tough time in your garden lately, hang in there; don’t give up! Fall can help make up for the losses from the heat and lack of rain.

Now is the time to remove any dying or diseased plants. If they are just drying up, place those plants on your compost pile. If the plant is diseased; white mold on leaves, rust spots on leaves, throw them in the garbage, not on the compost. Most home compost piles or bins do not get hot enough internally to kill the spores from the diseased plants. This would then allow the spores to spread to your garden next year when you apply the compost to your beds. Keeping the garden clean of this material will help you next year.

August is a great time to direct sow seeds for your fall vegetable gardens. The soil is very warm, no danger of frost and less competition with weeds since they are also looking for rain. As you pull old plants out, consider sowing short season vegetables such as cabbage, kale, broccoli, leaf lettuces, radishes, spinach, peas, beets and turnips. Just look for varieties with maturity dates of 60 days or less. These vegetables benefit by having warm soil and cooling days as the season progresses. The cool temperatures by harvest time will have enhanced the flavor of the vegetables and the plants can also take light frosts. If you like baby potatoes, the first week of August is a good time to plant the seed potatoes. Swiss Chard and onions can also be directly sown to grow on into early winter with some varieties growing into spring.