11/05/21

Story and photos by Amy Rosebrough

The frost is literally on the pumpkins, and the gardens at Pope Farm are slowly being put to bed for the year. Thanks to help from Pope Farm Elementary and Forward Gardens, it was a successful growing season!

Forward Gardens provided the Friends with an informative soil analysis and donated badly-needed mineral additives. Forward also loaned us an energetic crew of volunteers to hand-till the gardens, allowing us to get a timely start on planting. And that planting was assisted by our very first ‘crop’ of students from Pope Farm Elementary! The students planted corn, squash, sunflowers, and gourds in the 1000-Year Garden (pictured above), placing different varieties of corn on the different garden ridges to see how they grew.

Perhaps our most unexpected ‘volunteers’ were Henry and Henrietta, our resident Red-Tailed Hawks! They kept our volunteers ducking for cover through mid-Summer, while keeping the gardens rodent-free.

This summer, to commemorate the life of Genevieve Grignon–the first recorded owner of the land that would become Pope Farm– the rotating garden was refashioned into a French Potager/Three Sisters garden. Spring’s surprisingly high temperatures took an early toll on the French crops, which favor cooler weather.  Despite this, the gardens managed to produce a decent crop of cabbage, lettuce, turnips, beets, cucumbers, leeks, carrots, and herbs.  The flowers interplanted in the garden loved the warm weather, bringing the season to a close with wonderful blooms.  All the edible produce from both gardens was delivered to Forward Gardens for distribution to local food pantries.