STATE OF THE GARDEN

OCTOBER 17, 2011

Work Day-The work day Sunday was successful. 

• We moved all the unfinished compost to the south bin. The bottom half of the north bin was filled with beautiful compost, which was distributed to most of the plots. Now the north bin is available for this year's compost. Reminder: please continue to use restraint on what you put in the compost bin. Chop up the big and heavy stuff. There are loppers in the shed. Keep the small stuff on your own plot to compost over the winter. 
• A green tape tied to one of your corner post  means that compost has been put on your plot. It should be good to go for next year. 
• The south and east outside perimeters of the fence are now nicely weeded and covered with chips. 
• A big thank you to those who came out and did the heavy lifting and digging. 

Closing the Garden, 2011-This glorious late fall is giving us a few extra weeks of gardening. However rumor has it that winter will eventually come to Minnesota. Continue to harvest as long as you can, but eventually we will need to make the garden "winter-ready". This means 

•  Seedy weeds have been pulled and composted
•  All structures (fences, tomato stakes, art, etc.) have been removed and stored. 
• The plot is generally neat and tidy
• Cover cropping is highly encouraged, but not required. Oats are in the shed. 
•  If you want to leave dead vegetable skeletons, that is fine, especially if you are returning next year. I am not a bare-earth advocate. Know which plants or weeds will create a future problem and which don't really matter. 
• In order to receive your clean-up refund or roll it over to next year, your plot must be "winter-ready" and you need to have completed and recorded 10 hours of volunteer work. Ask me if you have any questions about this, 

2012-People are already asking about next year.  All current gardeners may have their same plot next year if they want. Two points to keep in mind:

• If you know for sure what your plans for the garden are in 2012, could you let me know. There is a rather long waiting list for plots next year and I need to start thinking about what is going to be available. At this point, I don't need a firm commitment, just an idea. 
• Also, at this point we don't know what the fee schedule for 2012 will be, so we need to hold off on registrations. We plan to discuss our financial needs at the annual meeting. Then we will be able to register people for next year. 

Seed Saving - The Organic Seed Alliance has a detailed seed-saving guide available to download. It crammed with information and is almost a short course in botany

http://www.seedalliance.org/download-form-1/

Garden Notecards-Don't forget to order notecards. An order form is included in your email.