The garden is entirely snowed under. The snow and a thick layer of leaf mulch protect the growing beds beneath, preventing soil compaction and keeping the earth a bit warmer. You might think that means gardening is done for the season. If we’re talking planting, watering, and weeding, then yes, it’ll be a few months […] The post Happy New Year from the Never-Ending Garden first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

One of the last tasks we do each season is plant garlic. This task happens only after hard frosts have begun so the garlic seeds don’t sprout before spring. This garden bed grew summer squash and zucchini, which were prolific and delicious. The time of summer crops has past, so gardeners pulled the plants, put […] The post Prepping and Planting Next Season’s Garlic first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

The frost that looked likely did not come to pass, but we took that as a signal to harvest all the winter squash. Gardeners planted fourteen rows of winter squash: buttercup, butternut, and delicata seeds. Some squash plants grow into widely sprawling vines. This is the butternut squash bed. Before it was time to plant […] The post Cold-Weather Squash Scramble first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

The temperatures in the next few days will be in the 30s. Even if it’s not a hard frost, this kind of cold will finish off many of the flowers. Team Flower Power has us covered. These goddesses of garden glory remind us that it’s time to harvest huge bouquets for fresh display now and […] The post Huge Flower Grab first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

The potatoes were ready, so gardeners dug them up. They were divided into shares, with each of the garden’s households getting a bucket of red and purple and a bucket of white potatoes. Unlike potatoes, which must be dug up, shallots lift easily out of the ground. Gardeners divided them into eighteen shares. Gardeners sometimes […] The post Potato and Shallot Harvest first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

So much food is ripe and delicious. Here are a few favorites. Tasty, colorful bush beans grow on vines that will continue producing as long as we continue harvesting them. In the basket are Maxibel haricots verts from High Mowing Organic Seeds, Tricolor beans from Renee’s Garden Seeds, Royal Burgundy beans from West Coast Seeds, […] The post A Taste of the Garden first appeared on The Garden at 485 Elm ..read more

The garlic plants are sending out scapes. Our job is to harvest and eat them! If we left the scapes on the garlic plants, they’d grow into beautiful flowers, using up energy. Instead, gardeners snap or snip the entire scape from every plant, freeing up those resources to help grow our target crop: heads of garlic. Here are the wrong and right way to harvest scapes. The gardener on the left hasn’t snapped off enough of the scape. See the stalk remaining on the plant? The gardener on the right snapped off the entire scape, all the way down to the leaves. That’s how it’s done. There’s another ..read more

Memorial Day weekend is a huge gardening time for Vermonters. We’re no exception. The weekend began on Friday at Cate Farm, where these great folks grew the garden’s seedlings for basil (Italian, cinnamon, lemon, and Thai), Sungold cherry tomatoes, chili peppers (poblanos and shishitos), cucumbers (Marketmore and lemon), dill, eggplants, and Italian parsley. We even met two prospective new gardeners who stopped by. With nighttime temperatures dipping into the forties and a cool, wet week in the forecast, it’s too early to plant these babies. Instead, we’re gradually hardening them off, leavin ..read more

The timing was perfect. The night before potato planting, a gardener found the last of 2023’s blanched-and-frozen potatoes at the bottom of the chest freezer and made a delicious treat: Slice the potatoes thinly, brush with avocado oil, sprinkle with seasonings—in this case, salt, smoked paprika, thyme, and sumac powder—and roast on a pan at 400° for 30 minutes or until perfect. First, we bought potato seed—or is it seed potato?—from Guy’s Farm and Yard in Montpelier. With the help of Chester the shop kitty, we selected 15# of white Kennebec, 10# of red Norland, and 5# of purple Viking potat ..read more

French sorrel is among the first garden crops to appear and the last being harvested before the garden goes to sleep for the winter. This perennial herb has a lemony tang to brighten up any salad or sandwich. It is a cooking herb, and gardeners share French sorrel soup recipes every season (here’s one). Just pinch or snip off leaves near the ground. French sorrel grows abundantly for harvesting all season long and even needs to be cut back a couple of times. The chives on the left and garlic chives on the right are tender and delicious, and mild tasting this time of year for using raw or coo ..read more