Happy September! September is my favorite month of the year for gardening, because it’s when our harvests are really bountiful. From feeling the juice from a ripe tomato dribbling down your chin to savoring the sweet crunch of a carrot just pulled from the ground, from the pride of a having a guest admire your homegrown bouquet of flowers to the satisfaction of saving seeds from your favorite green beans for next year, this is the time of year to literally enjoy the fruits of our labors.
For me, some of that joy comes from the ability to share the bounty with others. If your garden is extra productive this year, we have a list of food pantries and soup kitchens who would gratefully accept produce to share:
Ark Valley Mission (avcmbv.org), 122 Cottonwood Ave., Buena Vista, 719-395-9321. Open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. (donate produce those days at 10 a.m.).
Caring & Sharing Resource Center, 220 W. Fourth St., Salida, 719-539-4849. Tuesdays and Thursdays hot home-cooked meals from 11 a.m.-1 p.m.; food pantry and resource center, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
First Presbyterian Church (salidapresbyterian.org), 7 Poncha Blvd., 719-539-6422. Food pantry: 1-3:30 p.m. Thursday in the Pillar Room; donate produce Thursday morning.
The Grainery (thegraineryministries.org), 1348 E St., Salida, 719-530-9050. Open Monday and Friday, 10 a.m.-3:30 p.m.
Coming soon: Guidestone Community Fridge, hosted behind A Church. Guidestonecolorado.org, 719-239-0955. Will be available 24/7.
September is also the time of the year when I make some notes about what worked well in my garden and what didn’t. This year, raccoons got to the Penasco short-season chico corn, but I will still have some Red, White and Rainbow Blue corn to dry and grind for cornbread. My Chioggia beets did great, while the Detroit Dark Red were so-so, and I’d like to use a different seeding plate so they don’t germinate in clumps. Standouts have been Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes and Sugar Ann snap peas. Holding myself to a single zucchini plant was perfect, and I have another 50 feet of potatoes to dig and donate, store and savor.
I also love saving seeds, so I’m excited this year that I got to overwinter some kale to save a biennial seed to take back to the Salida Seed Library.
It’s been a season with lots of grasshopper pressure on farms and backyard gardens alike, the deer seem to be everywhere, and I get at least a couple of calls each week about pinon tip moths causing the tips of piñons to turn brown and die back, especially at the base of Methodist Mountain and in Piñon Hills.
Salida Seed Library and Salida Regional Library both have some upcoming workshops on seed saving, and the Chaffee County Master Gardeners are leading free workshops the second Saturday of the month at the Buena Vista Library on tomatoes and compost.
We have all these posted on the Chaffee County Extension Facebook page. If you have gardening questions, come by the Chaffee County Extension office, in the newer log cabin at 185 Quigot Court, or the far northwest corner of Chaffee County Fairgrounds. We are open 7:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Monday to Thursday to help answer questions on gardening, hand out well water tests, help troubleshoot what bug is affecting your trees and more.
Monica Pless is director of the Colorado State University Extension office in Chaffee County.
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