class time, volunteer time, Abingdon Virginia time.

Heather reporting.

This morning marked the day of our second-to-last garden class of the season. There will be another session this afternoon.

We discussed:

Sweet potatoes–protect from frost and hope roots develop further? Or dig out now? A few gardeners have mown down their sweet potatoes and plan on digging them in the next few weeks. Others have left the greens and don’t plan on mowing them down until digging the potatoes out of the ground. One lady plans to cover the plants with row cover and wait until November.

Talk raveled around to the rot from the frost-struck greenery above ground traveling down to the tuber it is affixed to and causing rot, to proper sweet potato storage.

We sat around a table inside Ecumenical Faith in Action, everyone trading stories, garden advice, questions, and more.  Everyone present filled out a survey to gather more feedback on this season and shape our journey into 2014.

When talk turned to cover crops, it turned out many folks were still interested in late covers. I had prepared some information on winter barley and distributed seed today.

Some people have engaged in seed saving and I reminded people saving bean seed to freeze the seed in jars–bean beetle larvae may be inside.

On from class time to volunteer time. 

5 volunteers came out for a day of service on Friday October 4th. 4 of the volunteers are Human Services students at Virginia Highlands Community College. 1 is a coordinator of a community garden in Marion, VA–Sprouting Hope Community Garden, who came out solo.

This group was special in that they actually liked to garden and had gardened in the past!!! Crazy! They knew what different plants were, took an interest in the herb spiral, and worked super well together. Maybe because they are Human Services majors, plus a garden coordinator, but they were kind, communicative, and were sharing garden/farm advice with me. What fun!

Seth and Joel helped me take down bean vines and clean up trellis while Jason (of Sprouting Hope) prepped a bed and then seeded said bed with barley.  Chloe and Debra sorted through saved Scarlet Runner seeds and weighed the final amount.

Apparently, according to the boys, I need to get a metal trellis–it is stable and doesn’t bend or twist as beans climb up it, making removal of vines a whole lot easier.

Jason also mulched paths inside our hoop house.

aaaaaaaaand then 10 volunteers came from Emory and Henry on Saturday October 5th for a Greek Day of Service–specifically members of fraternity Pi Delta Chi.

They removed trellis, t-posts, and plant debris

Picked the rest of our hot peppers

Mulched the main pathway in garden with wood chips

Thinned turnips

Planted more turnips

Flipped our compost pile!

aaaaaaand one new pledge at a Habanero. This all took place during the constant chatter of which super power you’d rather have. It was a fun day.