The Parkallen Community Garden is thriving this growing season and there are lots of yummy things to discover there. We are in maintenance and munch mode — meaning the garden needs weeding and the early crops are ready for some harvesting, e.g. a ripe tomato, some fennel, parsley and more are ready for your salad bowls.
Making a cake? Harvest some violets from our edible flower spiral to decorate it.
Two things that need doing asap is the garlic scapes should be cut. The energy of the plant should be going into producing a bulb underground, not a flower above ground, so we need to cut off the stems that are about to flower on top, leaving the bulb and leaves in place. The good news is that scapes are garlicky and delicious. So go harvest a few for your soups or what have you.
Also, the lettuce looks done and like it should be pulled out and replanted with another row or two of greens. So if you’re at the garden, look in the little house by herb spiral for seeds and go ahead and plant a new row of something wherever you can find space. If you’re one of the gardeners who has volunteered to lead a maintenance bee, please let me know what date/time you’d like and I’ll let the group know.
Enjoy your community garden!
Inch by inch,
Marlene Wurfel
Parkallen Community Garden Director
