Angels in My Garden  Week #30   August 3, 2010

The sun and moon and the rain and clouds, all are busy to prepare your food for you and it is unfair indeed if you do not appreciate it in thanksgiving.”
                                                                                                               Sa'adi

Hello Fellow Gardeners,

It may seem a little early to be thinking about the fall, but planning ahead can make all the difference when it comes to vegetable gardening, especially the cool and cold weather gardening that I hope we will all be doing.

One thing you should really start thinking about is a cold frame. A cold frame is a structure that protects your plants from harsh weather and extends the growing season by providing a warmer climate for your plants. It is the simplest of structures for cool and cold weather growing. The only source of energy for heating a cold frame is the sun, so you will need to locate it in an unshaded, southern facing site, preferably one that is slightly sloped to the south. Your square foot garden should be able to accommodate a cold frame. If the site does not slope to the south, building up the soil a bit ( at least 10 degrees) on the northern end will do the trick.

However, you might want to choose an entirely different site for your fall and winter garden. In addition to the southern facing slope, the same guidelines as those for your square foot garden would apply. In other words, make sure there are no large tree or shrub roots growing into the area, that it gets a minimum of six hours of sunlight a day and that you will be able to walk around it to tend to the plants.

If you know where your cold frame is going to be located the next thing to think about is what you want to grow in it. Leaf lettuce and spinach do very well in cold frames. Radishes, short “finger” carrots, endive and other greens also do well. There's nothing like going out to the garden and picking salad greens for your New Year's dinner.

Here's a link to a website that discusses building a 4'x 4' coldframe. It doesn't actually tell you how to build it but it lists the materials and shows a picture of the finished product. http://www.gardendesk.com/cold-frame/page/2/
More specific directions on how to build a cold frame will be coming soon.

OTHER THINGS TO DO IN AUGUST:

• If your mulch has decomposed, add more as needed

• Harvest your herbs regularly to keep them growing, and dry some for future use

• Your garden should be at its peak now so this is a good time to take photos (and, of course, email them to me). Seeing the results of your gardening venture not only gives me great pleasure but will provide you and others with inspiration for next summer's garden.

Reflection: Cathetel is the Angel of the Garden. She is credited with keeping the plants strong and healthy and increasing the vitality and yield of the vegetables. Not surprisingly, she is also a healing angel, inspiring people to spend more time outdoors in appreciation of God's creation and all the living things. Here is a little prayer to the Angel of the Garden:

Angel of the Garden, please lend us a little of your wisdom, your energy, your knowledge, your power your love, so that we may learn how to grow the best, most vital, most healthful food possible and teach this to as many people as possible,
SO THAT NO ONE ON EARTH NEED GO HUNGRY.”

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