by Amy Swanson
Working: Hancock, First Parish and other volunteers from the community
Weather: Sunny and cool to start giving way to the summer warmth you expect
Harvested: 58 pounds of produce including beans, kale, chard, radishes, cucumbers, basil, green onions, cherry tomatoes, beets, zucchini, yellow squash, zinnias and probably more that I’ve forgotten.
3 1/2 pounds of zucchini goodness
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Carla had other plans this morning so couldn’t be there to direct our work. But she left good instructions on what was ready to harvest and where to find them in the garden. It was time for us to fly solo! We never know as much as Carla, and we certainly don’t work as fast, but nevertheless our baskets were full to overflowing with all the greens, squash, flowers and other pretty vegetables collected for the Pantry.
Lots of onions!
Zinnias too!
Other notes/questions from the garden:
Can you find the bee?
– Unexpected: To need a polar fleece at 8am!
– Expected: To peel off the polar fleece by 8:30am!
– Bees peacefully buzzing the garden. The garden is a happy place for the bees that live behind the barn. And apparently they love the domesticated thistle.
– Volunteers discovered the trap set in the middle of the corn. Don’t know if for mice or squirrels, but hopefully it means we will get to harvest some of the corn. We were not so successful the first year, when savvy interlopers feasted on the corn, not the pantry clients.
– Radish greens are indeed edible. There was some discussion whether we should be trimming the greens from the radishes we pulled. Definitely the beet greens stay, but radish greens? In the absence of Carla, Omar checked his smart phone and discovered that people can cook the radish greens so no trimming was necessary.
– Kale…anyone know good summer recipes for kale that don’t require cooking in the kitchen? The kale we cut was magnificent and commanded respect! But the few of us talking about it only had sautéing or baking recipes… and who wants to heat up the kitchen in the summer? If you have other kinds of ways to cook kale, why not share them on the comments section of the Interfaith Garden website?