Chinquapin Organic Gardens Fall 2011 Newsletter
• It’s the end of the gardening season! Make sure your garden is tidy
• Message from the chair and vice chair: Looking back on another great year at Chinquapin Organic Gardens
• Chinquapin Organic Gardens is now on Facebook!
• Chinquapin news group is going strong
• What to do with leftover veggies and herbs in your plot
• Chinquapin Organic Gardens Potluck picnic is a delicious summertime success
• Send us your favorite recipes!
It’s the end of the gardening season! Make sure your garden is tidy
Gardening season is at an end at Chinquapin Park. All gardeners are required to clean up their plots by Nov. 30, the official end of the gardening season at Chinquapin. We all have very little time left to tidy our plots for the winter!
As stated in the Chinquapin Organic Gardens Regulations,
all dead plants and debris must be removed at the end of the garden
season. Gardeners who have not tidied up their plots will be notified
and may be ineligible to register for a garden plot at Chinquapin next
season.All stakes, tomato cages, fences and other supports must be taken down, and gardeners are encouraged to take them home. Any cages that are left must be neatly stacked and secured. Be sure to store materials away from the edges of your plot to ensure the safety of all path users.
It’s important to get rid of all spent plants and produce, as brush and rotting vegetation can attract rodents. Monitoring teams will be visiting the gardens on Dec. 3 and making note of any violations, so now's the time to spend some cleanup time in your garden!
Registration for the 2012 gardening season will begin at the start of the calendar year, so be on the lookout for your renewal e-mail or letter from the City of Alexandria.
Thanks for taking care of Chinquapin Organic Gardens!
Photo by Chris Price, courtesy iStockphoto
Message from the chair and vice chair: Looking back on another great year at Chinquapin Organic Gardens
We are always disappointed as the gardening season draws to a close, but looking back, we have wonderful memories.
Particularly noteworthy was the 13th Annual Chinquapin Organic Gardens Potluck Picnic, held in August. About 40 gardeners plus their guests attended and brought some pretty exotic dishes from produce from their gardens! The annual best garden awards were equally a highlight, with Catherine Hillard, a member of the Chinquapin Organic
Gardens
Advisory Board, receiving the Grand Prize for Best Garden. Of course,
our tomato judging contest enjoyed great participation, along with the
introduction of an exotic vegetable category, which was received
enthusiastically! City Councilmember Del Pepper joined us again this
year for award presentations. We received great publicity, with
journalists from The Zebra and the Del Ray Patch joining us.We will continue to develop the garden partnering (aka plot sharing) concept, whereby gardeners who find gardening in their plot a little overwhelming can contact John Walsh with the City of Alexandria and receive names of those who are interested in partnering with a current gardener. It is taking a little time to make this project function well, and we could use a volunteer willing to lead this effort and help John on this. This concept will also help reduce the numbers on the waiting list. To volunteer, contact one of us at the email addresses below.
We ask you to take special care as we wind down the season to make certain your garden plots are not overrun by weeds and left unattended. We will do monitoring on Dec. 3 and the advisory board will review the results soon after. We hope the board can recommend that you be allowed to rent a plot for another season. The official regulations
spell out what is expected of gardeners in terms of garden cleanup. We
recognize that there are quite a few plots that were not maintained
throughout much of the garden season. We will be working with the City
of Alexandria to assure that those gardeners are not going to be
invited to rent their plot next year. We continue to try to accommodate a reported 200 plus potential gardeners who are on the waiting list. The gardens are a tremendous benefit for gardeners who really care and want a chance to get their little piece of nature. Gardening is not an easy task, and it is time consuming. Yet the fresh air and working with the land is often as rewarding as the fruits of our labors. (Even our friendly deer find it is a delicious place to visit!)
The advisory board approved the addition of bee hives in the gardens this year, which have been in place for some time. Hopefully, they will result in more productive garden crops, as the bees pollinate the flowers of the produce. Let us know if you think it is working.
Please review the website and please share your experiences or your expertise by volunteering to write articles for the website and the newsletter. We would like to receive recipes for the website as well. Our website is becoming more popular and becoming a communication link. Thanks to gardener Michele Late for keeping this up-to-date and looking wonderful and for Roy Wright for hosting it. Contact Michele if you have something to add to the site or newsletter.
In
the coming year, representatives from the Virginia Cooperative
Extension and Master Gardeners of Northern Virginia are going to
continue to provide seminars on topics of interest to our gardeners. If
you are interested and would like to suggest topics, please contact us.The T.C. Williams Project Discovery gardens continue to do well and expand. If you can lend a hand, please stop by and offer to help. Gardeners Amber Kim Dewey and Brad Kukuk continue to work magic.
We also trust that you will be willing to attend our board meetings to give input, and even hopefully become a part of the board. We meet for an hour once a month, generally on the third Tuesday, at T.C. Williams High School. Agendas are posted online on the “about” page as soon as they are available. Drop us a line if you’d like to receive the monthly agenda via email.
We are certainly going to remember this as the best year for our tomatoes, but can’t wait to challenge that in 2012. We look forward to seeing you next year!
On behalf of the Chinquapin Organic Gardens Advisory Board, thank you!
— Marlin G. Lord, chairman, and Kathryn A. Brown, vice chairwoman
Chinquapin Organic Gardens is now on Facebook!
This summer, Chinquapin Organic Gardens made its debut on Facebook. Online at http://www.facebook.com/ChinquapinOrganicGardens, the garden Facebook page is open to all. Post information, ask questions or share your photos from Chinquapin! All gardening-related discussions are welcome. To be a part of the conversation, just “like” the page.
Looking forward to seeing you online!
Chinquapin news group is going strong
Did you know Chinquapin Organic Gardens has a listserve? Technically it’s a “news group,” but it’s the same idea. Sign up for the group, online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Chinquapin_Community_Gardeners, and you can post messages to other gardeners and receive messages via email. It’s a quick and easy way to get in touch with your fellow gardeners.
Recent messages have focused on water service at Chinquapin Park, a gardening workshop and the summer picnic. If you’re not part of the group, you could be missing out!
To sign up for the news group, send an email to Chinquapin_Community_Gardeners-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.
What to do with leftover veggies and herbs in your plot
If you’re like me, you usually find a few stray veggies in your plot at the end of the gardening season. On a recent trip to Chinquapin Park, I found a single leek, an onion and a few carrots that were somehow overlooked. And I just can’t seem to get my sorrel to stop growing!
Luckily, leftover fall vegetables have their uses. Combine them with vegetable stock and they can make a quick soup, especially if you throw in that extra kale that's still growing in the corner.
Have leftover herbs in your plot? Late-season herbs can make great aromatics for your turkey. Last week, I picked thyme, sage, rosemary, chives and fennel from my plot. Chances are some of they are still lingering in your garden, too.
To use herbs as aromatics, gather a mixture, wash them and stuff them into the empty cavity of your turkey or chicken before you bake it. The aromatics will impart a subtle herb flavor into your bird. Chinquapin-grown herbs also make a nice rub on the outside of the turkey. Just chop them finely, combine them with melted butter and rub them over the skin before putting your bird in the oven.
In honor of the leftover carrots and herbs I found in my plot, here is a quick and easy recipe for your fall table.
— Michele Late
Herbed Fall Carrots
• 2 pounds carrots
• 3 tablespoons olive or canola oil
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano
• 3 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley
• Salt and pepper
Directions:
• Heat your oven to 400 degrees.
• Chop off the green carrot tops. Clean and peel the carrots and leave them whole. Put them into a long baking dish with the oil, thyme and oregano. Add a few dashes of salt and pepper.
• Spread the carrots in a layer. Cover with foil and roast for 30 minutes.
• Uncover. Reduce the heat to 375 and roast for another 10 minutes to 15 minutes.
• Remove from oven and stir in the parsley. Serve hot.
Chinquapin Organic Gardens Potluck picnic is a delicious summertime success
The 13th Annual Chinquapin Organic Gardens Potluck Picnic on Aug. 6 was a fantastic event, with
great weather, happy gardeners and award-winning gardens. As usual, the delicious potluck food was a big draw.The annual Tomato-Taste Off was very popular, with many entries. Visit the picnic Web page to find out who won the taste-off and see who took home an award for best gardens.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the picnic! Check out the full gallery of photos from the picnic online now.
Send us your favorite recipes!Don’t forget that the Chinuquapin Organic Gardens website includes a page featuring your recipes! We’d love to share the how-tos of dishes you made at the picnic, or that you make any other time of year.
Send us your favorites and we’ll add them to our growing collection. Just send an email to Michele Late with your recipe.
Volunteer to write an article
for this newsletter!
This newsletter is produced and written by volunteers who garden at
Chinquapin Organic Gardens. New writers are welcome! If you’d
like to contribute an article to the newsletter, e-mail Michele Late,
newsletter editor. All gardening topics are welcome.
