Gardenwars: Week 8

This is it! The FINAL week of 2013’s Gardenwars. Get your vote in now and decide whose garden reigns supreme.

July 30, 2013; 9:21 AM • by Ross Catrow

This is it! THE FINAL WEEK. These four gardeners have weathered weather and toiled in the soil for eight straight weeks. It’s down to this last harvest to decide whose garden will reign supreme!

As always, remember our tangible-prize sponsors, Plow & Hearth! And congratulations to last week’s winner: Erik Bonkovsky!

Last week’s results

1. Erik Bonkovsky
2. Scott Pharr
3. John Sarvay
4. Lesley Bruno

Competition leaderboard

This week we’ve included the results of our super-secret (also arbitrary) scoring algorithm. Note: a lower score is better, like golf.

1. Erik Bonkovsky (15)
2. Lesley Bruno (16)
3. John Sarvay (18)
4. Scott Pharr (19)

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Erik Bonkovsky

Elaine Scarry said: “Gardens exist for the sake of being beautiful and for the sake of having that beauty looked at, walked through, lingered in.” Thanks to the other participants for letting me linger in some of their garden beauty this summer.

Here, a swallowtail butterfly visits our butterfly bush.

Some of this weekend’s harvest consisted of more potatoes and mounds of cucumbers which quickly became bread and butter pickles preserved for future months.

Though a transplanted Northerner myself, as a self-respecting gardener in the South, I knew I had to grow okra. It’s a beautiful plant and the first pods are just now ready for harvest (and subsequent frying).

Scott Pharr

FIGS! I haven’t gotten any yet, but thought you should know I have a fig tree.

CARROTS! Yep, I just pulled these this week, and they were bitter and gross. Sometimes gardening just doesn’t work out.

ZUCCHINI PIZZA! Here’s another idea of how to fix your home grown squash and zucchini!

John Sarvay

While your garden withers in the summer sun–I mean, when it’s not drowning in the daily deluge–we’re getting ready for our third amazing harvest of green beans. Whoever came up with the idea of planting new seeds throughout the season? Brilliant.

We’ll be enjoying this broccoli rabe–or, “broccoli rage” as spellcheck likes to call it–long after Garden Wars has faded from memory. And we’ll be enjoying it the Edo’s Squid way: sautéed with loads of garlic, olive oil, and a dash of red pepper and bread crumbs, tossed with pasta.

Remember that luscious looking Hanover Melon? We just unearthed two more when we culled our over-producing cucumber vines (Historical Fact: Cultivated in Hanover since 1895). August is looking a little bit better!

Lesley Bruno

We took the last of our tomatoes to the beach, where our friend Cora helped us eat them.

The end of our summer crop means a healthy contribution to the community compost pile.

Which means that from now until fall planting begins, we let the flowers take over. Happy late summer, everyone!

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Vote now!

July 30, 2013 9:21 AM 0