Soil, light, water, and warmth: it’s the formula for starting seedlings indoors or directly sowing them in a raised garden bed. The raised bed garden at Crestwood library was created to teach an intergenerational variety of patrons about the necessity of growing your own food. And yes, it is a necessity. Growing vegetables and herbs teaches perseverance, timing, humility, and the joy of watching something emerge and grow on a day-to-day basis, knowing that it will happily end up on your plate.
This year at Crestwood we have added a new raised bed to accommodate Cuor di Bue Grossi (Italian Blue Heart) cabbages as a first harvest vegetable. The seeds were very small, but we managed to grow at least six in the metal container. We watched our parsley reemerge next to the monster of the garden: oregano! That plant has taken over one part of the bed, but it will soon receive an overdue trim on Friday, June 20th for our Taming the Garden program.
With any luck, our small tomato plants will receive a lovely amount of heat and sun this week to boost their growth. The potatoes have certainly sprouted above our expectations. A+ for them! What seems to be growing at unprecedented rates are the recently added green beans, pole beans, and a few birdhouse gourd plants. When the trellises arrive, those vines will be curling up and over our heads, no doubt. We would like to send a profound thanks to Ana Gantzer who keeps adding to our collection of seeds.
Please stop by Crestwood Library to take a peek at the raised bed garden and the other containers as well - we even have some sunflowers. See you at Crestwood this summer.
This blog was written by Jackie Leone.