Better late than never…again

There have been several exciting new advancements this week regarding Williamson Community gardens!!   We finally completed all of our fall planting: finishing up the empty space by planting Kohlrabi, more parsnips and a bit more mustard. Our greens have poked through too, and we FINALLY have several eggplant growing… Better late than never, I guess? 🙂

I also just got done picking for our Farmers Market tomorrow,  and it seems like most of our summer crops are just about finishing up—I harvested what is looking like the last of the cucumbers, and probably the second to last pick of zucchini. We also still have a TON of tomatoes. While everyone else’s seem to be doing poorly, our “hot house” tomatoes are flourishing.

After picking this morning, I also had to go through and replace many of our drip irrigation lines. In the very beginning of this year, when I first started writing the blog- we had had our drip irrigation tape system installed. The initial novelty of drip lines has certainly worn off. The system, when working properly, is a thousand times better than having to water such a large space by hand, and should technically be saving water.   However, the drip tape tears so easily, leaving gaping holes for water to pour out of. The results are often huge puddles and therefore waste, as shown below:

Note the puddles left from our drip irrigation tape…

But on a positive note however. I found out last week that starting on Oct. 23^rd, Williamson will be hosting 5 weeks of AmeriCorps NCCC (National Community Civilian Corps) volunteers. The group will be here until Dec. 4, and will be dedicating their work to the community gardens in Mingo County. They will also be working on several other food related projects.  While this seems like a long time to host volunteers— this is wonderful news. We are always looking for help constructing, weeding, planting, harvesting, etc. And even though it will be during a colder period of time– we will always have something for them to do!!!