Harvest Carts
The Interfaith Garden harvested over 80 pounds of fabulous food over the weekend with volunteers from Hancock, First Baptist, Lexington Methodist, and other supporters! They delivered a variety of produce to the Lexington Food Pantry including: cucumbers, beans, mint, squash, zucchini, garlic, parsley, lettuces, Swiss chard, basil, onions, raspberries and blueberries, kale, and beets!
Read the full report to learn about the onion washing team and how to prevent birds from eating your fruit.
A good crew made this morning’s work go quickly. The goal was pick and deliver to the Lexington food pantry and then quit early. Today we delivered cucumbers, beans, mint, squash, zucchini, garlic, parsley, lettuces, Swiss chard, basil, onions, raspberries and blueberries, kale and beets. Mark reports that the harvest topped 80 pounds. That brings the season-to-date delivery to 333 pounds, the most we have delivered ever to this point in the season.
Other garden notes:
• Carla is still fighting the worm that seems to be feasting on the zucchini and summer squash plants. We may just pull some of the plants and try something else.
• For the first time we sent blueberries, quite a few. After two bad seasons with winter moth taking their toll on the bushes, Carla has gotten a bumper crop. So many that she was compelled to share the bounty.
Picking Blueberries
Berries on the way to the pantry
• Onions—lots and lots of onions. Last week we pulled about 27 pounds and this week we pulled another 26 pounds. There are plenty more rows to go so the pantry can expect to see a continued allocated flow of onions. Have you ever seen onions in a garden? The bulb grows underground while producing lots of green fronds atop. As the onions mature it is as if the bulb stays put and every day it grows larger until the diameter is big enough to break through the soil. This morning walking through the beds, you could get very Roald Dahl-like and imagine these onions each vying for your attention …”pick me, pick me”.
The Onion Team
Picking Onions
Onions 1st Stop
Onions 2nd Stop
After being pulled, onions were carried to a “cleaning station” set up in the shade of the trees. Two people shook off any clumps of dirt and gently slipped off the outer papery skins. Another person scrutinized the greens and judiciously trimmed away ratty or brown ones. Then the last person cut the bulb about two inches up the green fronds–onion bulbs in one basket and cleaned onion greens in the other. Salvaging the greens was a new thing after one of the volunteers mentioned that many people use the greens in cooking, as you would with scallions, to enhance the flavor of dishes.
Here’s a hint for dissuading the birds from gutting your fruit trees (in this case, Carla’s peaches.) Try hanging pinwheels in the tree. Carla learned it from someone else this year and it seems to be doing the trick. After a small investment in cheap plastic pinwheels from Stop & Shop, she is now enjoying the first of the juicy peach crop.
Pinwheels