Sep 4th, 2011

Down But Not Out

by Albert Brian Vick  Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, Community Kitchen Garden Coordinator

The post-Irene scene at the Lewis Ginter Community Kitchen Garden was a little disheartening at first, but that was before two volunteers from Luck Stone showed up. Sort of like a boxer after a bad first round getting a jolt of energy from the fans, we pulled ourselves up by our boot laces and started getting down to business.

Joy Cook & Roger Levesque, representing Luck Stone Corporation – one of the largest, family-owned and operated aggregates companies in the U.S, showed up undismayed and ready to work. We first harvested what we could – and for the first time this season the group of tomatoes allocated to the compost heap exceeded the count of tomatoes we crated for the Community Kitchen. Joy & Roger then moved to the next most important task, beginning to restore the vines to a vertical position. By the end of the morning work session there was a noticeable and critical improvement.

Joy Cook & Roger Levesque rassle the wind-blown tomato vines back onto the stakes.

Joy Cook & Roger Levesque rassle the wind-blown tomato vines back onto the stakes.

 

 

It's a little hard to make out what's going on in this photo - but that's what chaos looks like. The section of tomatoes using cages was the hardest hit, being taller and more tightly grouped.

It's a little hard to make out what's going on in this photo - but that's what chaos looks like. The section of tomatoes using cages was the hardest hit, being taller and more tightly grouped.

Leaf-Footed Bugs having a post-hurricane party on the Champion (tm) VFNT tomatoes.

Leaf-Footed Bugs having a post-hurricane party on the Champion (tm) VFNT tomatoes.

Jonah Holland is Digital Content Manager at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, where she has worked for 14 years overseeing social media, the blog, and the website. She is also a mom, yogi, open water swimmer, gardener, and seeker. She's been known to go for a walk in the Garden and come back with hundreds of plant photos, completely inspired to write her next blog post.

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