Our Vegetable Garden

September 05, 2026. August was a busy month! With plenty of rain and the heat, everything grew really fast including the weeds, but it is all quite lovely. The zinnias are SO tall and vibrant. The photo to the left was taken on August 23. There are two other beds with zinnias, and one with some late sunflowers. We love to share with the wildlife but we hope to get some of the seeds. The photo below features zucchini, basil, pole beans, and Dakota Black popcorn (on the other side of the fence).

At our most recent garden volunteer day on August 9, Ms. Popp planted carrots, sugar snap peas, and bush beans for a fall harvest. I am happy to report that the seedlings are doing well! Available for harvest now: zinnias, black-eyed Susans, purple asters, pole beans, cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, and peppers. The pie pumpkins are maturing nicely and the Dakota Black popcorn is being harvested and dried; it is so beautiful. We hope to package up some to share with the Team Saturday kids!

July 20, 2026. To the left, is a photo taken at the beginning of July of some beautiful volunteer sunflowers (bed #13) that grew from the seeds of last year’s sunflowers! Somehow the plants spaced themselves evenly; quite wonderous. Due to the heat and lack of rain, the sunflowers are hurting a little now but very, very tall – likely 12-15 feet! Below is a photo of the wild petunias and  the yellow crookneck squash (bed #15). The squash are coming in strong.

Fresh harvest: parsley, oregano, thyme, fennel, yellow crookneck squash, sweet basil, Jimmy Nordello peppers, zinnias, sunflowers, black eyed Susans, mountain mint, New York asters. We just pulled the last of the carrots but will be sowing those in the fall along with some broccoli and leafy greens.

Soon we’ll be harvesting green beans and soybeans! The popcorn plants are producing ears and looking really good and the pie pumpkins are starting to form! Stay tuned!

June 29, 2026. To the left, under the wild petunia photo, is a snapshot of the peas and lettuce that did very well this spring (Bed #2). We planted those along with carrots and beets; the beet seedlings didn’t survive the hard frost.  A couple weeks ago we took out the peas and some of the almost-bolting lettuce to compost and sowed pole beans, popcorn, and some basil (Thai and Sweet) starts. We harvested the winter rye grain and put up for the wildlife; we'll use the stalks for mulch later this summer. In other beds we have: soybeans, tomatoes, hot peppers, fennel, thyme, sage, pie pumpkins, zinnias, yellow crookneck squash (photo below left, Bed #15) and more. Bed #16 is our compost / native pollinator plants bed. In Bed #14 there are several very, very tall sunflowers ready to bloom!

August 13, 2025. To the left is a photo of one of Team Saturday's raised garden beds. In this one we have pole beans using the sorghum as a trellis. There are also brown eyed Susan (the yellow flowers) and asters (not yet blooming), Watermark Woods’ plant starts from the awesome Pollinator Garden gift (50 plants!)  that Morven Park’s Center for Civic Impact donated to us (thank you, Gwyneth!). And, there are also strawberry plants in this bed that were started years ago! Below is our very first raised bed planted with mountain mint and brown-eyed Susan (part of the donation) and the sign that the Team Saturday students made way back in the summer of 2021!