by Amy Swanson
About 18 pounds of produce was delivered this morning to the pantry: herbs (dill, parsley, mint, thyme), chard, bok choy, beets, radishes, edible pods, oriental peapods, shelled peas, lettuce heads, looseleaf lettuce, and scallions. Carla also contributed 13 freshly laid eggs!
It was fortunate that Omar came early to help Carla get ahead in harvesting this morning. With the garden starting to produce more, it is a race to get everything picked, cleaned and weighed and over to the Lexington Food Pantry before 9 am. So starting in July, we will officially roll back Saturday start times to 8 a.m. from 8:30 am.
As noted above, there were lots of crops to harvest this morning. As we’ve come to expect from this garden, the plants are thriving now and laden with their fruit. This morning, the most time consuming crop to harvest was the peas and beans. Originally the rows were planted with single varieties. But bunnies and Mother Nature took a toll and so over time, the empty spots were replanted with whichever seeds were available so now all the rows are mixed. It takes a very discerning eye to know one peapod variety from another. Was it a snow pea pod or an immature peapod to be shelled? We did our best and Carla gave us a tutorial as we sorted all the pods at the end and shelled the appropriate variety.
As you might imagine, anything growing close to the dirt needs some cleaning before bringing over to the pantry. So produce like the lettuce, beets, radishes, and chard get rinsed off.
Then all produce gets brought to the barn to be weighed and packed for delivery. Don’t know about you, but many of us are keen to know how much these gardens are producing. So it all gets weighed and recorded with the date noted. Last year’s records proved very helpful for us when we were setting up this year’s volunteer schedule and anticipating when to start and how many people might be needed.
Here’s the result of this mornings’ efforts… loaded and ready to be wheeled to the Pantry.