Cabbages provide some drama at the Lewisburg Community Garden. If this is on a private allotment, some Lewisburg family is going to be sick of cabbage-based side dishes.
I stopped in recently at Lewisburg’s community garden and saw some impressive sights. Most impressive of all: tomato plants that had late blight lesions over a month ago had somehow survived, put out new growth, and produced even more tomatoes! I guess cool days and an amazing lack of humidity made the blight fungus uncomfortable and kept it from reproducing.
The community garden seems in peak season. It’s producing beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cabbage, raspberries, and even salad greens. There are gorgeous displays of flowers scattered throughout, there’s a large expanse of sweet potato vines promising a healthy harvest of tubers, and there’s very little evidence any plants are in late season decline. Photos provide some sense of what’s up at the community garden.
Lettuce shouldn’t look like this in Lewisburg in early autumn. To be so mature, these plants would have to have sprouted and grown during the hottest part of the year; that’s when lettuce is supposed to bolt and produce flowering stalks. Significantly below normal cool could have gladdened any lettuce farmer in central PA.
Chard is a gorgeous food plant that could easily have a place in ornamental beds. There’s plenty of healthy chard in Lewisburg’s community garden.
About half of the tillable land in the Lewisburg Community Garden grows food for a local food bank. There is a spectacular stand of raspberry brambles that is loaded with ripe berries. I hope to learn what variety these are so I can include them in my own bramble patch.
The renter of a particular allotment in Lewisburg’s community garden clearly prefers flowers over food. The space resembles a cutting garden with a huge variety of plants just showing off. A morning glory on the fence has the most deliciously blue blossoms. For all the show gardens and garden shows, this is one of the most beautiful garden elements I’ve seen all year.