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On the weekend of November 5 & 6, Elisabeth & Alan visited her brother Phil, who gardens a plot in the community garden at the North Branch Nature Center in Montpelier.

The garden has officially begun the mid-season transition. Today we harvested the last of the spring brassicas, and replanted the bed with seedlings for our second crop of cauliflower and zucchini.

Today was also the season’s first tomato harvest, which is always a mid-season milestone. The bush beans, eggplants, peppers, and summer squashes are just coming into season as well.

And today was garlic and fava bean harvest day! We’ve also begun taking regular harvests from the kales and chard. Next week, we’ll pull the peas and replant that bed with pole beans.

Presto, change-o!

Our first substantial harvest of the season was all about salad. We harvested arugula, lettuce, radishes and spinach, along with some lovely micro-greens from thinning our beets, bok choy, mustard and Swiss chard. Yum!

Thanks to Nicole for brightening the garden.

Opening day was brisk and breezy at the garden. Much to our surprise, we discovered that the young lettuce we left in little plastic hoop houses survived the winter. The other major discovery was a huge rock about a foot below the surface of one of the garden beds.

The rock was almost as large as the Philosopher’s Stone we unearthed with great labor many years ago and left in the corner of the garden until the fence was replaced. Yet once the rock stars set to work, there was no doubt that the rock would be moved. It was an exhausting process, but the team displayed remarkable skill and ingenuity. Well done!