Planting sweet potatoes was a key garden task this week. We preordered slips from a farm in North Carolina in February and they arrived mid week. Slips are shoots that are started from a mature sweet potatoes. As the picture below shows, they are predominately a green stalk with some leaves and no roots. They often look rough but will thrive when planted.

It was a week of overcast skies and rain. Despite all the wetness, things still moved forward at the garden. Early in the week before the heavy showers, I was able to till several sections in prep for next weeks plantings.

Here in Central Virginia, we had a cold spell last weekend with night time temperatures in the thirties. All our plants survived, and use of floating row cover helped us to protect more sensitive crops. It is exciting to walk into the hoophouse and see not only lettuce mix growing but blooming colorful flowers too!

Our three beehives have been active this week! Photo below captures a honeybee collecting pollen from overwintered kale that has gone to flower. Notice the yellow pollen basket on her hind leg. This is where the bee stores pollen to take back to the hive.

Hi everyone, Julia here for an update. As we move into mid-august the garden is transitioning to welcome new crops and soon, new fall interns! The summer interns will miss our summer at MKG dearly. Spending a whole summer outside learning to grow food sustainably has been a privilege. Steph (MKG manager) has been an amazing teacher and role model and we are all so thankful for her knowledge and expertise.

Hi everyone! It’s Gabriel again with my last blog post for the summer, but don’t worry there will be more posts from our other interns. Next week is my last week at the garden and I am so grateful to have been a part of the garden for the summer! I had a wonderful time planting, caring for, and harvesting all the fruits and vegetables that we have at Morven and giving them out to people to enjoy.

Hello! Michael here as I just finished up my third week as an intern at Morven Kitchen Garden (MKG). It has been an enjoyable few weeks. I have adjusted to working at the garden and have been learning a lot about agriculture and growing vegetables.