George, you asked what I think/thought about the vegetable demonstration garden at Soos Creek.
First of all, I would give a great big cheer and a capital ‘A’ for the effort that the two gentlemen owners have offered to the local food bank. And to their staff of dedicated volunteers assigned to carry out this assignment. Most certainly, there is a need for food donations during these difficult times. There are many small children going hungry here in the USA, or their parents postpone eating, while their children get fed first.
As far as the actual demonstration gardens are concerned, I am not sure of the message the gardening staff wishes to explain and show to visitors. The veggies are located in an area very close to the greenhouse that the staff uses for all their plant propagation.
But unfortunately the greenhouse is off limits to the general public. Which again, is also very understandable, as some visitors would certainly help themselves to the young plants, if they would have chance. The greenhouse area, along with the veggies is fenced off but with an open gate, so you can view them closeup, and walk amongst the raised beds that they are growing in. Some of them are signed as to varieties; there are some with vertical growing habits are on trellises. The trellises might have been homemade, I’m not sure. But when we visited there, some corn was growing, squash, tomatoes, and quite a verity of other standard consumables. Whether all the starts were homegrown, or whether they might have been donated by others, I do not know.
But missing out on viewing the most important step (at least to me) of seed starting, potting up, fertilizing, watering, etc., when it is so essential to growing veggies is disappointing! And here again, there would be some visitors that would help themselves and harvest the veggies. People are funny that way!
I believe I am correct in stating that they are allowing school children to visit and talk about raising vegetable. Again, kudos to the Soos Creek Botanical Garden's staff!
