Lexington Interfaith Garden

by Amy Swanson

Volunteers:  First Parish & Hancock

Weather:  Light rain with sunny dispositions

Yesterday was great!  It’s been a month since the last time I was there and now I see the fresh promise of what is to come.  A month ago it was all about prepping….clearing out the remnants of last year, spreading mulch, creating new garden space.  Now when you arrive, there is a clear sense of what is to come–rich dark dirt, quadrants of neat beds, that unique pretty green of young plants, and tidy paths.  Having worked at the garden the first 2 years, I know that this early phase gives ground before too long to riotous growth and crowded beds demanding attention.  But right now, in the quieter phase, while much has been planted (and some greens already harvested), there is more to plant in the upcoming volunteer days.  Yesterday our crew added squash, peppers, cucumbers and more.

Here is what I learned yesterday:

Asparagus—Carla’s beds are 32 years old!  Talk to any gardener and they will be surprised that these asparagus beds are still so productive.  Most would say that 20 years is a long time for plants to stay productive.  Some of the plants have gone right to seed.  They are readying themselves for next year.  But there are plenty that are delivering the tasty spears we recognize.

Garlic—Garlic gets planted in the fall…ideally after the first hard frost so they don’t start growing too soon.  You want them to lay dormant over the winter and start really germinating in early spring.  Do you know when garlic is ready for harvest?   The “tell” is in the greens.  You know when it is ready to harvest by watching the green fronds.  First the fronds have to get to the stage where they start to spiral and curl up.  Then you wait for  them to uncurl.  After that, they are ready to harvest.  Carla would normally expect that to be around July.  However, with our warm winter and lack of snow cover, we might see the garlic ready sooner.

Garlic

We are all dependent on the pollinators.

Volunteers from First Parish, St. Nicholas, and Pilgrim met with Carla at the garden this morning.  There had been no frost, the sun was quickly chasing away the chill (36 degrees at 7 am), and Carla had already decided that since it was too windy to plant seeds, we would clean the barn!  It would have made a wonderful photo with all the hoes, shovels, rakes and rolls of wire fencing leaning against the wooden garden rails outside.  There were also wheelbarrows, tables, and containers (baskets, trays, boxes) scattered about on the lawn.  But we had no CAMERA!   So you will have to imagine it.  Inside, the barn was swept, seeds were sorted, and small items were returned to their proper places.  It looked quite nice when we were finished.

In other news, the new rabbit fencing looks quite competent, and Carla has seen no evidence of nibbling in the garden.  Around 10 am Carla, Pam (St. Nicholas) and Amy (First Parish) were separating some of the new little sprouts that had come up too near to each other.  They prepared some seedling trays with a soil mixture, and placed the sprouts in the small sections of the tray.  These will be allowed to grow to 6 or 8 inches and then will be replanted in the garden.  If someone remembers what these little sprouts were, please let us know in the comments section, because I have forgotten.  Please add any other comments as well.

It was a delightful, sunny, cool morning and we were all happy to be outdoors and at the Interfaith Garden.

Barbara Munkres
Pilgrim Church

Hi Interfaith Garden volunteers—

The garden will be opening in 2 weeks and so the planning crew is busy getting organized and laying out a schedule for all the participating faith communities and others.  I need to do a bit of housekeeping myself.

For starters,  let me give you an update on our hours.  We will keep the schedule of working on Tuesday afternoons and Saturday mornings.  Tuesdays will be from 4:30 to 6pm and we will start this season working Saturday mornings from 9 to 10:30am.  (Later when we have crops to harvest and deliver, Saturdays will move to an earlier start time.)

 The first day of work will be Tue, March 20^th.  There’s lots of good prep work to be done–like spreading compost and installing a new rabbit fence.  Those wily critters took way too much of the lettuce and broccoli last year and Carla thinks she has the solution! 

I am looking for a few people to help on the following days… (Could be very educational to those who also are looking for ways to foil rabbits in their gardens!) :

Tues, Mar 20^th

Sat, Mar 24^th  

Sat, Mar 31^st

Please let me know if you are interested and available to work on any of those days…especially on both Saturdays.  After I sort through the responses, I’ll get back to you as to whether I still need your help.

Looking forward to another productive year!  Thanks.

Amy Swanson

We harvested 854 pounds of produce as of last Saturday.

Potatoes and pumpkins were our top two producers with close to 130 pounds each.

We had a lot of squash with 83 pounds of summer squash,  82 pounds of butternut squash and 12 pounds of acorn squash.

We had 78 pounds of tomatoes and cherry tomatoes.

While it didn’t weigh a lot –  my absolute favorite was the basil –  we harvested 7 pounds of basil!

We grew 37 different types of produce in some quantity this year.

While it is not on the spreadsheet –  Carla’s chickens contributed dozens and dozens of fresh eggs from some of the happiest chickens I’ve ever had the pleasure to know…

You’d be very happy too if you woke up every morning knowing that you were going to have some fantastic interfaith garden vegetables to eat every day.