Becky Griffin helps school and community gardeners succeed! This includes organizing school garden teacher training with county agents, assisting schools with STE(A)M goals, and creating resources on starting and sustaining successful gardens.
Becky is a Georgia Certified Beekeeper and works with community and school gardeners to increase beneficial insect habitat. She is the coordinator of the Great Georgia Pollinator Census, happening this year on August 19th and 20th, 2022. She is also part of UGA's Native Plants and Beneficial Insect Working Group.
Sometimes determining planting dates can be tricky. We know that our fall vegetable garden should be in and growing when it is still hot, and dry, outside. We also know that many cool season plants don’t grow well in the heat. What to do?
Weather Station Map
The first step is to find out when the average first frost date is for your area. Luckily in Georgia we have the Georgia Automated Environmental Monitoring Network (AEMN) which has weather stations all over the state. These weather stations collect weather data year after year, including first frost dates. This information can help us determine when to plant. Let’s say you live in Dallas, Georgia and you want to plant broccoli, specifically the cultivar Green Goliath.
If you visit the AEMN website, www.georgiaweather.net, and type in your zip code, 30132, you will be directed to the Dallas Georgia weather station. Following the link for first frost date you will find years of data for your use. Let’s just use the last six years of collected data:
2012 Nov 9
2011 Oct 30
2010 Nov 6
2009 Oct 19
2008 Nov 10
2007 Nov 7
Using this information we can determine when we want to make sure the broccoli has matured and hopefully been eaten and enjoyed. These dates have a span of 22 days. The earliest is October 19th and the latest is November 10th. The October 19th date looks like it may be an outlier. (A statistician could do better justice to this analysis I am sure!) So, you may decide that Halloween, October 31st looks like a good date to work with.
According to The Southern Seed Exchange catalog, the information for Green Goliath says 55 days to maturity (DTM). In this case the DTM is from the transplant stage. So, if you are starting your seeds to create your own transplants you will need to add about 20 days to that number, 75 days.
Look at October 31st and count back in the calendar 75 days. This leads us to August 17th as the date to plant your seeds. Experienced, and maybe obsessive, gardeners mark in their calendars key dates such as “100 days until average first frost date” and “75 days until average first frost date.”
If you live in Dallas Georgia today, September 17th, is 44 days until your estimated average first frost date. If you are feeling lucky with the weather, you might find some Green Goliath transplants at your local plant store.
As people become increasingly aware of the importance of pollinators, more community gardens are considering establishing a honey bee hive (or three) of their own. Not only do bee-flower interactions increase garden productivity, bee hives can provide great educational opportunities for the communities that keep them.
By providing pollinator support to your garden, you are greatly increasing the chance that your crop yield will be heavier and of better quality than without bees. To give just one example of this, the Honey Bee Project of the University of Hawaii found that the addition of one hive to a hectare of cucumber plants can result in three times the fruit production as compared to a plot with no hives. Moreover, in terms of fruit development, they found that a minimum of eight to ten bee-flower interactions is necessary to produce a cucumber of adequate quality.
Bees provide crucial agricultural support to gardens, but they also afford us with important learning opportunities in regard to the ecology and interconnected nature of our food systems. The practice of keeping bees permits communities to learn about the living systems that provide food for us. Around one third of our global food production and 90 percent of wild plants are dependent on pollinator services. As bee populations decline due to Colony Collapse Disorder, rampant pesticide use, loss of habitat, pests and diseases, and genetic uniformity caused by selective breeding, the spreading of awareness is increasingly critical in our efforts to reverse the problem. The bees give us an opportunity to increase awareness of how to not only live sustainably within the system, but how to nurture it as well.
Now that we know how the establishment of bee hives in our community gardens can help us as gardeners, we need to ask ourselves how we can help the bees. Beekeeping is a fun, rewarding hobby, but taking upon the responsibility of caring for a colony of bees not a task to be taken lightly. Establishing beehives in your community garden requires either procuring a local beekeeper or becoming a beekeeper yourself in order to maintain the hives. Beekeeping associations often offer beekeeping courses in the early spring. Though these are not required to become a hobby beekeeper in Georgia, they are highly recommended for the benefit of the bees and the keepers.
Honey Bees Coming Home – photo by Jeff Martin
In order to ensure a healthy, happy hive, take part in best management and good neighbor practices. It’s critical that your hive has a variety of non-pesticide-laced wildflowers to forage for food when crops are not in bloom. Strategically planting varieties of native wildflowers that bloom when crops are not blooming will provide season-long food supplies to keep your honey bees, as well as our critical native pollinators, healthy and productive. Plus they are pretty! It is also important that the bees have access to a clean nearby source of water; they need this to help produce food for baby bees as well as to cool their hives during the hot summer months. Keeping these necessities close by will discourage bees from traveling long distances and wasting energy that could be used to make honey, as well as from becoming a nuisance by spending too much time around your neighbor’s pool.
In regard to liability issues, there’s no guarantee a neighbor or visitor won’t bring a nuisance or negligence case against you regardless of the precautions you’ve taken. As Georgia has no laws protecting beekeepers from these legal actions, this topic is open for legal interpretation. However, the liability risk is negligible in comparison to the great ecological benefits that these insects provide. Moreover, honey bees are an extremely docile species of bee and the likelihood of being stung is extremely low, especially when they are not in their hive. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly believe they have been stung by a honey bee when in fact they were stung by a yellow jacket or other aggressive stinging insect. Considering that the act of stinging causes the bee to die, this action is only taken as a last resort when defending their colony. Some beekeepers claim that honey bees are so docile that, when foraging for food in flowers, they can even be pet. Keith Delaplane, a UGA entomologist has a thorough publication, Honey Bees and Beekeeping. Helpful information on all types of bees can also be found through the Xerces Society.
If you’re interested in establishing a bee hive in your community garden, you can learn more by visiting local beekeepers, taking some beekeeping classes, or by contacting your local UGA Extension office.
Jennifer Grimes is a City and Regional Planning Graduate Student at Georgia Tech. She is currently an intern with the Georgia Tech Urban Honey Bee Project. Jennifer is also a home brewer and plans on making mead in the near future using local honey – Honey Bee-r!
“We are NOT building a garden. We are breaking generational barriers, cultivating and amending the fallow ground of imagination and hope, planting seeds of thought, birthing fruit of propensity for prosperity. That – that is what we are doing.” This is on a sign that greets you when you visit the Healthy Life Community Gardens in Griffin. The garden is located on the grounds of the old Fairmont High School, which was started as a Rosenwald school. Rosenwald schools were primarily built for the education of African-Americans in the early 20th century. So, there is a lot of history here. But, the school has been closed down for some time now and the area forgotten until the idea was born to create a garden here. And, it is a beautiful garden.
There is no cost to get a plot at the garden and the Griffin Area Housing Authority
Patti Beckham waters a few plants.
provides water. There are 17 official gardeners using assigned raised beds. And, others who come to just volunteer here. There is a
Young readers enjoy the garden.
pollinator garden and a nice seating area. A unique feature to this garden is the “Summer in the Garden” reading program where volunteers from the FERST Foundation bring garden-themed books to read and give to young gardeners. The space has designated Community Areas where anyone can pick and take vegetables. They have recently added some fruit and pecan trees.
At the heart of the garden is Patti Beckham. Patti is a program assistant with Spalding County Extension and you can hear the passion in her voice as she talks about the garden, and the people who garden here. Patti taught at Fairmont for eight years
when it became a special needs school. She loves seeing the place reborn. She conducts a Junior Master Garden program here and also supervises 4-H students who are volunteers. Patti and Wade Hutcheson, the Spalding County ANR agent, agree that
UGA Extension Agent, Wade Hutcheson, visits with gardeners Jimmy Jones and Ernest Lewis. Mr. Jones went to the Fairmont school in the 1950s.
the number one need is more gardeners from the immediate community. Wade says the garden is here and within walking distance of so many people, he is hoping that more will come out. For more information about the garden contact Wade at the Spalding County Extension Office at 770-467-4225.
The first rule at the Healthy Life Community Gardens is “I will have fun.” Isn’t that great?
Can any Southern garden truly be Southern without collard greens? If you are from the South your Grandmother probably cooked them up with a bit of smoked meat or bacon. They are a staple at the Sunday dinner table, tasty and very nutritious. Collard greens are a wonderful fall plant because they can take the heat and the cold. For questions about any fall garden vegetable contact your local UGA Extension Agent.
August is the time for direct seed sowing. Make sure your soil is loose and well-drained. The seeds will germinate at soil temperatures from 45 degrees – 85 degrees, a very wide range. Seed heavily, putting about 2 inches between seeds, and cover the seeds with about 1/4-1/2 inch of soil. Thin to 12-18 inches between plants. The thinnings can be steamed and eaten or transplanted. Since you are planting in the summer, insect pests may be a problem for very young seedlings.
Many gardeners start their seeds inside and transplant hardier seedlings. For transplants, either raised or purchased, September is the time for planting. Transplants will adjust quicker if they are planted on a cloudy day or hardened off to the heat by keeping them in the shade for a few days. Keep the plants 12-18 inches apart. Collards are heavy feeders so make sure to add some fertilizer or compost when you plant. Nitrogen keeps those leaves nice and green. Keep the young plants well watered. Some gardeners have problems with leaf spots on their greens. Paul Pugliese’s Leaf Spots on Greens Related to Moisture could be helpful if this happens to you.
With collard greens you don’t have to worry about the first frost damaging the plant. The greens actually taste sweeter after a frost.
You can harvest greens a number of ways. You can harvest the entire plant when it is half grown or full grown. Or, you can begin taking several of the outer, lower leaves after the plants are about a foot tall. Harvesting the plant a few leaves at a time will prolong your harvest and you will have fresh greens as you want them.
Blue Max, Georgia Southern, Hevi-Crop are all recommended cultivars. Master Gardeners have also had success with Georgia Green as well. These should be available almost at any place that sells seeds. If you are fortunate enough to live near an old fashioned feed and seed store or an older hardware store, you may be able to find seeds there. Also, there are several mail order companies such as Seed Savers Exchange and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds that specialize in hard to find seeds.
The poet Maya Angelou is quoted as saying “The best comfort food will always be greens, cornbread, and fried chicken.” We tend to agree, don’t you?
It seems no matter how hard we plan at some point during the summer we have more tomatoes than we know what to do with. We have eaten many BLT sandwiches, given the neighbors more than they can use, and canned tomatoes for the winter. You have donated scads to the local food bank. What next? I asked chef and owner of the restaurant 4th and Swift, Jay Swift, how he would handle this problem and he gave me a recipe that is perfect for those tomatoes!
Heirloom Tomato and Melon Gazpacho
1 pound tomatoes, cut into quarters
1 cantaloupe, skin and seeds removed
1 honeydew melon, skin and seeds removed
5 basil leaves
1 TBSP champagne vinegar
3/4 cup olive oil
Salt/pepper to taste
Honeydew Melon, Cantaloupe, Tomatoes, and Basil sauteing in Olive Oil.
In a large saute pan, heat the olive oil. Add the tomato quarters, melons, and basil. (Note: with a gas stove make sure you turn off the heat when you add your ingredients. This prevents flames in the pan.) Saute the ingredients until they start to bleed out, about 1 minute. Remove from heat and quickly store in the refrigerator. Once everything is chilled, buzz in the food processor with vinegar. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!
Delicious!
Chef Swift is a gardener in his own right and his restaurant is known for its farm-to-table menu, using all-natural and sustainable farm products. He was happy to share a photo of his garden with us. He is proud of his restaurant located in the Old Fourth Ward district of Atlanta near the new Atlanta Beltline project. And he should be! We thank him for sharing his culinary expertise with us.
The summer vegetable garden is still producing plenty of great food for most Georgia gardeners, but the first frost date is getting close enough that we all can begin to think about fall crops.
As Extension Horticulturist Robert Westerfield says in the UGA publication Home Gardening, “Fall-grown vegetables are usually of very high quality. If you supply water as needed, use pesticides properly and fertilize according to label recommendations, you will be rewarded with tender vegetables in a season when few people are enjoying such delicacies.”
Young Broccoli Plant (PHOTO/Amy Whitney)
While many summer vegetables will grow and produce into the fall, cold-hardy crops that can withstand some freezing weather can extend the harvest well into winter for much of the state. The list of these cold-hardy crops includes broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach, beets, turnips, collards, kale, carrots, and more! Your local UGA Extension Agent will be able to tell you what fall crops grow well in your area.
When the first frost wilts and blackens the last of our summer crops, the fall crops should already be in place and growing strong.
To get them far enough along that they will reach maturity before a very hard freeze damages the more tender of these crops, they should be planted according to the times listed in UGA’s Vegetable Planting Chart. The dates in the chart are for middle Georgia, so an adjustment of one, two, or more weeks will need to be made in the planting dates for most Georgia counties.
For gardens north of middle Georgia, an earlier planting date is needed to allow time for good growth before their earlier frost. Gardeners farther south can plant later than the recommended dates, since their frost date will be later.
At planting time, don’t forget to follow the soil preparation guidelines that make the summer garden such a success. Add more composted organic matter to the soil, since some will have been lost to decomposition over the hot summer, and remember to provide good nutrition to your crops through fertilizer additions.
These additions can be based on soil test results (preferred) or based on instructions on a home-garden fertilizer package. Careful soil preparation pays off in higher yields, so these are important steps. Most important of all, though, is to enjoy the beautiful fall weather and bountiful harvest!
Amy Whitney is a Horticulture Program Assistant with Cobb Extension. She lives in Kennesaw where she is famous for the creative way she grows food crops in her suburban yard.
If you have grown squash for very long you have probably run across the dreaded squash vine borer (Melitta curcurbitae). One day your plants look great and the next day the plants look wilted. Shortly after they collapse and die. The base of the plant becomes mushy. You may even see small holes at the stem base. Squash vine borers have probably paid your garden a visit.
Squash Vine Borer Photo by Jim Jasinski, Ohio State University Extension, Bugwood.org
To understand how to control this pest we need to understand a bit about its biology. In June/July adults emerge from under the soil. They fly during the daytime and lay a single egg at the base of susceptible plants like squash and pumpkins. After about a week the egg hatches and the larva bores into the plant stem. The insect will feed through the center of the stem for several weeks. Then the larva will exit the stem and burrow back into the soil to pupate until next summer where it emerge as an adult. There is one generation per year.
Knowing this biology we can use integrated pest management (IPM) to help combat this pest. Choose plants that the vine borers don’t like. Gardeners have had success with moschata types of squash like butternut. Their stems seem to be more resistant to the borer. Next, especially if you have ever had vine borers, you must rotate your crops. Don’t plant squash in the same place next year because the pest is in the soil waiting until next summer to emerge.
If you have planted in an area that does not have a history of squash vine borers you can use row covers (simply structurally supported netting) to block the flying adults from laying eggs. As soon as the squash starts to flower you will need to remove the row covers to give the necessary pollinators access to the flowers. Some gardeners have had success with trapping. The adults are attracted to the color yellow. Some gardeners use yellow bowls with filled with water. The thought is the yellow bowls will attract the insects and they will drown. Yellow sticky traps are also available.
Squash Vine Borer Larva Photo by Gerald Holmes, California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, Bugwood.org
Change your squash planting time. If you can plant very early so that the squash will be mature and fruited before the adults lay eggs, you might outwit the pest. When the squash plant has finished producing vegetables, remove it from the garden.
What if it is too late and you are already infected with squash borers? One recommendation is to make a sharp slit in the stem and remove the borer. Afterwards pile soil around the stem so that the wound is covered with soil. Insecticides can be used for prevention but once the pest is inside the plant, insecticides aren’t very helpful.
If your crop is a complete failure, your local Farmers Market will probably have some squash and you can try again next year.
Contact your UGA Extension Agent for more information on combating the vine borers. Also, visit Homegrown Summer and Winter Squash by Florkowska and Westerfield for other tips on growing squash.
Buried in Veggies? It can happen. I was in college when I planted my first garden and I had a taste for zucchini. I planted 50 seeds and ultimately grew 36 fine zucchini plants.
I stir-fried zucchini, baked zucchini casseroles, made chips, and baked bread. I sold it at the local coop. I gave it to the neighbors and gave more to the neighbors. Eventually, they stopped coming to the door when I knocked. I put in on tables in front of my house with a sign, “Free to a Good Home.” Did you know zucchini makes a fine addition to the compost pile?
Fortunately, you can do much better with your extra produce today. The Plant a Row (PAR) Program was started by Jeff Lowenfels, a garden columnist in Anchorage Alaska. He asked his readers to plant an extra row of vegetables for Bean’s Café, an Anchorage soup kitchen. The program was very successful. In 1995 Jeff introduced the program to the Garden Writers Association and eventually, they created a foundation to administer and expand the program. The program has helped collect over 20 million pounds of produce to date.
Freshly Washed Produce Ready for Donation.
Some community gardens have dedicated spaces or rows specifically for food donation. They are cared for by the entire group or even visiting groups of young gardeners or FFA (Future Farmers of America) students.
If you are near the Atlanta metro area, you can easily donate your extra veggies to those in need. The Atlanta Community Food Bank’s Community Gardens web site has a very handy-dandy locator that will help you find a PAR drop-off site. Ample Harvest also lists many food pantries. Ask around. It isn’t hard to find a place. MUST Ministries in Cobb or Cherokee county would love to have your extra produce.
You will want to contact the food pantry before you show up with your harvest. They may have a preferred delivery date and time. Harvest your crops in the early morning on delivery day to take advantage of the cool air. Dry off any dew.
Now this next part is really important. Inspect each item for bruising, insect damage and ripeness. If you would not serve it to your family, do not give it to the pantry. If it is the sort of veggie or fruit you would put in a stew, don’t give it to the pantry.
A Plot Dedicated to Feeding the Hungry at the Cherokee County Senior Center Garden.
If the pantry gives you packaging instructions, follow them. If not, put the produce in a supermarket bag and take it to the pantry at the requested time and date.
Bring what you have. If you have a bushel of zucchini and 10 tomatoes, bring them both to the pantry. Your food will be aggregated with the donations of others. Handle the food just as you would for your family. You are protected by the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. This Act encourages food donation while provided the donor with protection form criminal and civil liability provide you do not exhibit negligence.
Just as you have always suspected, you can make the world a better place by gardening.
Dr. Ellen Bauske is a Public Service Associate with the Georgia Center for Urban Agriculture who still enjoys zucchini. She is active in the local food movement.
Sweet corn can be a challenge to grow in the community garden, especially for the one to two ears you get for each corn stalk. It can shade your other crops, or your neighbor’s. Some community gardens have rules that prohibit growing corn for that reason. Popcorn can be another story. The cultivars can be shorter than sweet corn and even though the yield is about the same, you can make popcorn last a long time.
Tom Thumb popcorn grows to be about 3 feet tall and is a popular cultivar all over the country. Pennsylvania Butter Flavor, Dakota Black, and Cherokee Long Ear are cultivars Master Gardeners have had great success growing in Georgia. Know that all corn types, including popcorn, are heavy feeders so make sure you have good fertility in the soil. If you can plant the corn where a legume has been growing – fantastic! The legume will have added nitrogen to the soil for you! You will want to add some compost or nitrogen when the corn is about 6 inches high and again when it is about knee high.
Sow twice as many seeds as you think you will need and thin to about 8-12 inches apart. Keep weeds at bay and when the corn is about knee high add soil over the exposed roots for good support. If you decide to try growing popcorn this late in the season, determine how many days until maturity (usually this information is on the seed package) and make sure it will have time to mature before frost.
The trick to successfully growing popcorn is to know it is wind pollinated. The pollen of the male flowers (the tassels) need to
Cherokee Long Ear Small Popcorn
reach the female flowers (the silks). Especially when you are growing limited amounts you want to think “blocks” instead of “rows”. Planting in squares will drastically improve pollination as the wind-blown pollen grains will have a better chance at landing on another corn stalk. So for a 4′ X 8′ plot you could have four stalks across and at least four stalks down the plot for a total of at least 16 stalks. With this plot size, know popcorn would take up at least half of your plot area. This would probably be a minimum for good pollination. You could always help the wind out by gently shaking the stalks yourself!
The wind pollination can be an issue if another community gardener is also growing another type of corn, especially if either one of you is planning on saving seed. You could get cross- pollination. You may want to separate your planting dates by a couple of weeks so that the corn doesn’t tassel at the same time. Or maybe you all can grow the same type of popcorn.Your local Extension Agent has all types of information on growing all types of corn.
Let the popcorn ears remain on the stalks until the husks are dry. The downside here is this takes time that could be used to start another crop. Bring it inside to finish drying for several weeks. You can remove the corn kernels from the ears by hand, by twisting the kernels off or by rubbing two cobs together. Experience teaches that it is fairly easy to remove them by flicking them off with your thumb. This winter when there is a nice fire in the fireplace and a good book in hand, you will appreciate the time and effort it took to grow your own popcorn!
This is a good blueberry year. The rain we had in the early spring and the cold winter temperatures helped make the berries plump and delicious. They are fun to snack on as you work in the garden and fun to take home for later.
Many gardeners are frustrated when the birds get to the berries first. One recommendation is to put netting over the plants. This is not a perfect solution as it makes it hard for you to harvest the blueberries. And, it is extremely sad to deal with a bird caught in netting. Some gardeners tie aluminum pie pans to the bushes. The sun reflecting off of the pan and movement of the pans with wind can help deter birds. Experienced gardeners will advise to just keep the bushes picked. As soon as the berries are ripe harvest them; don’t leave the blueberries on the bushes ripe for very long. This seems to be an invitation for birds.
Now that you have an abundance of delicious berries what can you do?
Best defense against the birds – keep the blueberry bushes picked!
To store them frozen, freeze them in a single layer on a cookie sheet. After they have frozen, pack the berries in containers or freezer-type plastic bags and return them to the freezer. You can take them out of the containers a few at a time. Wash the berries just before you use them. This way you can enjoy blueberry muffins and cobblers all winter! You can also put up some blueberry jam. Canning supplies are found in some big box stores as well as many local hardware stores. Preserving Food: Jams and Jellies has great information for the beginning jam maker, including a berry jam recipe.
For summer eating, nothing is as good as a Blueberry Crisp. This recipe is from a Cobb County Master Gardener Volunteer, Beth St. Jean, and is published in Farm to Table which is a collection of recipes from the Master Gardeners of Cobb County. It is the perfect use for blueberries!
Blueberry Crisp
3 T all-purpose flour
2 T granulated sugar
6 cups fresh blueberries
1/4 cup lemon juice
1 cup brown sugar
2/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cups quick-cooking oats
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Stir together in a large bowl the flour and sugar. Gently toss in blueberries and lemon juice. Spread berry mixture in bottom of ungreased baking dish. Set aside. To prepare the topping, combine brown sugar, flour, oats, and cinnamon. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle mixture evenly over the berry mixture. Bake uncovered for 30 minutes or until top is golden brown and edges are bubbly. After cooling for 45 minutes, may be served with ice cream on top!
If you don’t have blueberries in your community garden yet, we will discuss how to do that in a later post closer to the appropriate planting time. Meanwhile, know that your local UGA Extension Agent can help you with any blueberry plant questions or problems.
