Hello Gardeners,
PUTTING YOUR GARDEN BED TO BED
– Some gardeners still have beautiful gardens full of greens and other plants
that don’t mind frost. But if you planted mostly warm-weather vegetables and
your garden is now done for the season, this is a good time to get it ready for
the winter and next spring. Pull out your weeds and dead vegetables and flowers,
and haul them to the weed pile. But leave large root balls in the soil – please
remember, we don’t want dirt in the weed pile, just vegetation. Then, when your
soil is bare, you can cover it with a good layer of leaves to protect and
nurture it. (See “Leaf Situation” below.)
If you’re renewing next year, you’re certainly welcome to
keep your tomato cages, hose, personal tools, and so on at the plot. But since
things sometimes disappear at our gardens, I would recommend taking anything
you value back home for the winter.
If you’re not renewing your plot next year, of course you
could just walk away once your garden stops producing. But please give some
thought to the gardener who will come after you. What did your plot look like
when you started this spring? Was it in good shape, so you could plant right
away? Or was it a jungle that took you many hours to clear before you could
even start your garden? If you enjoyed your time at Eagle Heights, please show
your appreciation to your plot and to the community by leaving a nice-looking
cleared plot for the next gardener in your space.
THE LEAF SITUATION AT EAGLE HEIGHTS
– If you’re at University Houses Gardens, you should have plenty of leaf mulch
to last through the fall, and well into next summer. But when will Eagle
Heights get leaves? Our leaves come from the Village of Shorewood, which
collects them from residents in the fall. They started collecting them at the
end of September, but they haven’t yet delivered any to us. When they start, as
I’ve mentioned before, the first loads will go to University Houses, then to
the CALS plots, and then to our regular leaf pile spot, next to the weed pile.
We won’t have to wait for the weed pile project to be finished – leaves can
still be delivered there while construction is in progress, as long as the road
is open.
WEED PILE DRAINAGE PROJECT – This
project has started, and will hopefully be completed this year. A large cement
pad will be constructed in our weed pile area, so that the weeds will no longer
be sitting in pools of evil-smelling water. There will also be some related
work to improve the water-handling in that area of the garden. UW Grounds is
doing the work, and the project is moving slowly because they can only work on
it in between their other projects. It’s saving us a lot of money to have them
do it, and we can depend on them to do a good job, so it’s worth the wait.
SAYING GOODBYE? – If you know now that you won’t
renew your garden plot next year, would you please email me to let me know? It
will be helpful when I start assigning plots to new gardeners next year.
WORKDAY
– The current weather prediction for this weekend is rain both days. We’re
going to wait a few days and see if the forecast looks any better at the end of
the week. I’ll send out an email if we set a workday.
Happy
gardening,
Kathryn
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