Garden Update

I hope the summer has been treating everyone well! The gardens (and weeds) certainly have flourished, I visited today and spent about an hour weeding, admiring plants, and contemplating what I would make with the numerous crops in our garden.

Some exciting news about our community involvement: We have been able to forge a relationship with a group of Burmese immigrants who have a garden in an area called the Clay Gardens here in Greeley. So far some of our UNCO Gardeners have visited the Clay Gardens with the Burmese people, shared a snack including radishes from our garden, made a pizza using garden vegetables, experienced new herbs and usage of plants, and learned how to communicate with people who do not speak the same language. This is a wonderful experience and a relationship I hope we can continue to work on.

A gardener and Burmese immigrant trying a crop together

Here's an update on our garden:

The peas are starting to produce pea pods! I ate a few today, they are very sweet and crisp.

Green onions doing very well still

Our cantaloupe plants have sprung into action. There were a lot of flowers that I am sure will start forming fruit soon. I had no idea we could grow this melon in Colorado so I am excited to see how it does.

The tomato plants I planted only a short while ago are doing great. Some of the other gardens' plants have green tomatoes already but ours are a little behind. I hope they will start producing soon.

Our cilantro has gone a little too long without being harvested so it flowered but I am going to use some to make my favorite samosa recipe this weekend.

The lettuces have done exceptionally well. They are definitely ready to be harvested so they can continue to grow. When harvesting lettuce just cut the leaves off the plant, do not pull up the roots. This way the roots will continue to produce leaves until the growing season is over.

The deer tongue lettuce variety we planted is unique in look and taste.

A red pepper plant towering over the rest of the garden, no peppers yet but it's a very healthy plant.

Zucchini was planted by a dedicated gardener in the middle of our garden to take up some of the space made available by unproductive parsnip plants. 

Even though our parsnips didn't grow our carrots are doing great. They should be big enough to harvest soon, when you can see the orange tops breaking through the dirt it's a good indicator that they are ready.

A nice big bag of grass and weeds pulled from a small section of our garden. Weather that is good for crops is also good for weeds, it's necessary to weed almost everyday now.

I pulled our last radish while I was weeding, they are a spicy vegetable but taste great sliced thinly with a little salt sprinkled on top.

A lot of our plants are growing but haven't started producing fruits or vegetables yet. I think most of our plants will be ready to harvest closer to August. I can't wait to see how our garden progresses.