The Rain Held Off!

The image above is explained below. With a threat of rain later today, we were blessed with warm temperatures and some sunlight of all things. It's clouding up at 2 pm now but I think we'll escape with a full day of work under our belts. The Grumpies had a great day although work out in the garden is becoming more sparse. They hauled decorations over to the visitors center and did myriad tasks around the horticulture center. The carpenters will be busy thru the winter and there are some nice indoor projects starting to materialize. Marianne volunteered today and worked on the lights show all day (as did I). Larry helped put up lights and ran many extension cords. Jerry and Janice did some gardening and Rick and Tony bounced between various projects. Dr. Gredler did some of our last mowing and we're starting to prepare for winter by stockpiling salt and getting snowblowers ready.


The picture above is of produce that we grew back in 2007 at the gardens. We had an heirloom collection of tomatoes, garden peppers and eggplants. This collection was maintained by Master Gardeners and the bulk of the produce was donated to area food banks. Gardening with heirlooms and growing your own food continues to become increasingly popular each year. For next year (our 20th anniversary incidentally), we'll be displaying 100 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, 25 varieties of heirloom bell peppers, 25 varieties of hot peppers, 25 varieties of basil and 25 varieties of heirloom beans and/or peas. We will offer most of these varieties as plants during our spring plant sale in May. This is our fourth year of growing vegetables and visitor interest continues to increase. Master Gardeners will play a major role in maintaining and promoting this collection and I'm relying heavily on Janice and Kristine this winter. The fun part will be picking the varieties as the seed catalogs arrive.


I've decided as the weather gets more sour, I wont try to keep up with daily photos (unless relevant) but will toss some nice images (see below) to carry over some color until spring. For those that read this blog, don't hesitate to make any comments or post questions. The intent of this blog is to not only catalog what is going on at the gardens but also to entice potential new visitors so pass along the link and let's get more supporters.