The Bird-Friendly Vegetable Garden:
For The Birds, People and The Environment
By Cathy Clare
At this writing, it is late October and our 2011 gardening season has just ended. Already feeling nostalgic, I close my eyes and picture how, starting last April, the months rolled by while the Bird-Friendly Garden (BFVG) evolved.
More on this later, but first, a word on why a vegetable garden at Bedford Audubon. Both National Audubon (via its Audubon At Home initiative) and BAS (in its mission statement) urge homeowners to maximize your
property's potential as a natural habitat for birds and other wildlife. Growing veggies organically is a great way to do that. After all, whether it’s a human enjoying a fresh garden salad or a bluebird nestling gobbling up a juicy caterpillar, nobody should feed on pesticides.
Thirteen gardeners — from novice to experienced — signed up for the gardening class, joining me, volunteer Michele duRivage and intern, Tommy Flynn. In all, nearly 100 crop varieties were cultivated this year in the BFVG. Participants regularly took home healthful, delicious produce and we also donated more than thirty pounds to the food pantry at the Community Center of Northern Westchester in Katonah.
Now, back to 2011 gardening memories. It’s early April. Bright green chives, sage and other herbs dot a still mostly brown, bare background. Later, on a glorious May day, lettuces, including bright red 'Outredgeous’, and deep green arugula overflow their beds. Those crops suffer minimal damage, likely thanks to birds who feed on insect herbivores. Not to claim that it’s always a pretty picture: one day in June, we discover some mammal is eating our pea plants. There will be no pea harvest this year.
Yet many other crops are thriving, so we don’t dwell on failure. In July, we gleefully harvest cukes, kale, spinach, rhubarb and other crops. Also, we dutifully tie up the already-staked tomato plants lest the developing fruits pull down these monsters. In August, we are rewarded with a bumper crop of delicious Sungolds and Cherokee Purples. Could the intensely scented basil interplanted among the tomato plants be keeping destructive insects at bay? Perhaps. In the same month, our first sweet strawberries appear. Zinnias flower spectacularly, attracting pollinators and delighting humans. In September, as summer morphs into autumn, we pull carrots, parsnips, potatoes, beets.
October is the month to put the Garden to bed. We yank old plants and haul them to our new compost bins. Finding edibles at this time of year seems almost a bonus and we delight in very good pickin’s: More root crops are dug up and unseasonably warm weather has extended the season for tomatoes and beans. We plant garlic whose shoots will begin to poke up next spring as the new gardening season begins. Also remaining in the Garden are sunflower heads heavy with seeds and strawberries for the birds.
To join 2012 BFVG class contact Cathy Clare at Catmint@optonline.net or 914 874-4519.
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