By Jasmine Shi

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Today was an interesting day as we had a group of people from a market research company join us as part of their company volunteer activity. We had a lot more hands than usual which was great!

As we are in autumn now, corn is ready to be harvested. We don’t have corn plants in the Riley Park Garden, however Emily brought over some purple sticky corn that she is helping to grow at her church garden. The purple colour is beautiful to see!

We learned that an ear of corn is ready to be harvested when the silk filaments on top start to turn brown. Also, did you know that each strand of silk filament corresponds to an individual kernel, and that for a single kernel to ripen, its filament needs to be pollinated? That's a lot of pollination for one ear of corn!! 

With autumn also comes some new flower blooms. We noticed purple asters as well as autumn crocus flowers, both blooming vibrantly at this time. Autumn crocus flowers bloom without their leaves and so they are also referred to as naked ladies, an easier name to remember 😜

As we were walking around, we noticed that the radishes were poking out from the soil and, though not ready yet, are coming along beautifully which is exciting 😺

Our duties today included: saving seeds from dried seed pods, harvesting, preparing the garlic bed, and trimming and harvesting from the herb bed.