Volunteers from: Follen, First Parish, Redeemer, Lex Catholic Community, Hancock, Lex Methodist
Weather: Started out raining but then dissipated. Lots of good cheer despite the initial sogginess.
Produce picked and delivered this week: About 95 pounds which included eggplant, summer squash, zucchini, spaghetti squash, Swiss chard, kale, beets, lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes (cherry and regular), Romano beans, pole beans, cucumbers, bok choy, acorn squash, basil, zinnias.
Saturday’s excellent crew spread out, taking initiative to harvest in Carla’s absence. There was a list of 18 crops to check for harvest readiness. Lots and lots of kale got picked, as well as lots and lots of bok choy.
A fraction of the kale harvested!
…and more kale from the small garden!
We might have had a lot of butternut squash, but opted to leave them for one more week. Having seen the butternut earlier when their steroid growth swarmed and overwhelmed that quadrant of the garden, seeing them now in their mature stage is very interesting. As Carla had forecast, signs of their ripening would start with the vines and leaves dying off. In fact you can now see more soil than plant, quite the contrast with not even a month ago! (See Aug 28th report with pictures.) As the butternut matures and turns more brownish yellow, the green on the outside retreats until what remains is primarily stripes like external ribs. The Saturday crew studied the green stripes and concluded there was still too much striping. The consensus was to let the butternut sit another week. We thought that there’s more risk of picking too early than a little late. My guess is that next week will be a big one for this crop. A lot of the acorn and spaghetti squash got harvested, so despite no butternuts, the squash family was well represented at the Pantry.
Mom and son working together!
This mother and son spent their time in the tomato patch. The direction was to pick all the tomatoes that were at least half red and separate out the ones with splits for the chickens. The tomato seconds were just another of the delicacies fed to the chickens that morning–they also feasted on kale and chard that didn’t make it through quality control.
When you work at the garden, it’s not just an opportunity to learn about vegetables. On Saturday, the sighting of a hawk flying overhead led to a short tutorial about hawks. Shirley and Dave, experienced birders, identified our hawk as a female red-tail variety. And did you know that the females don’t have the red tail of their name, only the males do? Females are larger than males and have more muted plumage. Apparently if you really want to watch hawks, Massachusetts has some areas well known for hawk aficionados…like Wachusett Mountain and Mount Watatic. Shirley and Dave happened to be there on the day that some 5000 hawks (not red-tail, but another variety…broad-wing?) flew through on a southerly migration. If you are interested in learning more, check out Eastern Mass Hawk Watch, http://massbird.org/EMHW/Hawk_Watch_Program_2012.htm