Lexington Interfaith Garden

by Amy Swanson

Fall Produce on the way to the pantry

Did you know that garlic buds and their cloves are actually the seed of the plant? So if you want to plant garlic,  take that bud off your counter,  split it into the individual cloves and plant. That is what we did this morning. Turned over one of the beds from a previous crop that was done and planted garlic. But here’s what I don’t know because I forgot to ask…  is the newly planted garlic for next spring,  or is it one of the cool-weather,  quickly regenerating crops that can be harvested later this fall?

With freeze warnings out,  we were sent on a mission to scour the tomato plants. Pick all that were ripening…  if it were blush colored or ½ red,  pick. The rest of the maturing will happen on the counter,  and it won’t take all that long. Lots and lots and lots of cherry tomatoes. The chickens think we are the best. Why? Because they get all the tomato rejects!

The garden keeps on giving! Guess what beds are still producing… tho not at the pace of their “high season” ? Strawberries and asparagus. Yes,  imagine my surprise when we were sent to weed the asparagus bed and found new spears. In total,  we had about 5 or 6 spears to cut. The asparagus and strawberry beds will be getting an early feed of composted manure.

How many Interfaith Gardeners does it take to pick cucumbers? Apparently 4 and 3 different attempts. Cucumbers do a very good job of hiding under the leaves. First Carla went out to pick. So cucumbers went off the list of assigned chores. But the tomato pickers passed by the bed and found a few. Then Carla went back and found yet another great cucumber that all of us had missed. “You” can hide but eventually “you” will be found!

As it turned out,  it was all Hancock volunteers this morning. As we worked together, catching up with some after a summer away,  I was reminded about this whole other aspect of the garden—how pleasant it is to work alongside someone and shoot the breeze.

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• You should keep potatoes to keep out of sunlight?  When you don’t,  they turn green and that’s bad. If you find your potatoes at home have turned green,  it is best not to eat that part of them since not only do they not taste as good,  but they can be toxic.  Saturday’s potatoes had actually been dug up last week and left in the barn to dry off. On Tues other volunteers cleaned off the dirt and covered them with double layers of newspaper to keep them out of the light.  That’s when we heard about the negative effects of allowing further photosynthesis.

• Many vegetables should not be washed until ready to eat.  Once you wash them,  it accelerates the aging process so they go bad much earlier.  We had instructions not to wash a number of the vegetables and that would include pole green beans,  potatoes,  crookneck squash,  cucumbers,  eggplants,  and tomatoes.

• Swiss chard—did you know that it is best to leave 3 leaves per plant when cutting chard?  That leaves enough to keep the chard regenerating so you get more out of each plant.

• Parsley—similar to the chard,  the best way to pick parsley is to thin the plant,  not completely cut it back.

• Lastly,   it takes two wheel barrows to cart 144 pounds to the pantry

We needed two carts to get everything to the pantry

by Amy Swanson

Harvest heading to the pantry

“Serendipitous”.  That was what I was thinking as I walked home after working at theInterfaith Garden.  With many experienced hands this morning,  we were done with all the harvesting,  cleaning,  delivering and weeding well before 9:30am.  So it gave a few of us time to shoot the breeze as we leisurely cleaned up.  I was talking with two volunteers from First Parish and recounted how the little giving garden started a few years ago by 3 couples from their congregation on adjacent First Parish land acted as a gateway introduction of sorts to Carla and her garden. These 3 couples wanted to do something to help hungry neighbors and so they planted a small garden on church land with the intent of donating the produce to the Lexington Food Pantry.  Neighborly chats and sharing of water by Carla to the First Parish garden eventually led to the gracious offer by Carla to use her large garden as the site to launch theInterfaith Garden.   Yes,   I’d call that initial private undertaking by 6 people as serendipitous when you consider where it led. And what happened to that FP garden?  It is still being worked and has been incorporated into the InterfaithGarden.  It is often referred to as the “small garden” in our reports.

By the way, over 60 pounds of produce were delivered this morning and include: cherry tomatoes, tomatoes, basil, yellow squash, acorn squash, cucumbers, green peppers, eggplant, butternut squash, bok choy, radish, parsley, green beans, peppers, swiss chard, zucchini, and pumpkin. Carla added some fresh eggs as well as zinnias and cosmos.

I borrowed Carla’s notebook to look back at the record of our volunteers.  Would you believe that this season so far,  there have been over 275 sign-ins, by almost 120 different people!  That doesn’t count Carla,  not everyone remembers to sign in,  and I know that some days are missing.  Some volunteers deserve a special shout-out for the number of times they have helped:   Carla (of course),  Mark S.,  Teresa A.,  Eli H.,  Amy S.,  Joyce G.,  Larry M.,  Keith W.,  Louise W.,  MaryAnn S.,  and Omar K.

Lantana Blossoms

Produce at the food pantry

Volunteers at the garden today came from First Parish,  Hancock,  and Redeemer

Volunteers from Hancock,  First Baptist,  First Parish

Harvest Produce in the garden's new cart

Today’s cartload included:  onions,  garlic,  radishes,  cherry and regular tomatoes,  red potatoes,  basil,  cucumbers,  eggplant,  crooked neck squash,  yellow squash,  eggs,  peppers,  flowers,  parsley,  and acorn squash.

 Over 45 pounds were picked and delivered.  Included was almost 3 pounds of tomatoes,  basil,  peppers and cucumbers that was contributed from a giving garden being tended by Hancock Nursery School summer participants.

Since I haven’t been at the garden in a few weeks,  there were a number of things that looked different to me:

–          The degree of “lushness”.  So many beds are thriving in this good growing season that it is hard to find the walking paths.

–          The bunny fence in the small garden.  Carla had to get a special bamboo fence since her wire fence was proving too easy for the rabbits. The big garden still has fences within fences to ward off the assorted voles,  rabbits,  chipmunks,  etc.  (A particularly audacious or stupid rabbit came to visit while we were weeding this morning).   There is still an issue of the most recently planted broccoli and cabbage being eaten…but by animal or bug?

–          At the end of the asparagus season, the remaining plants are let to go to seed and they go WILD! Carla has bungee-corded the plants to give clearance to the paths. It’s hard to reconcile this 6 ft high hairy wild plant tall to the orderly soldier-like stalks that we have grown to recognize.

–          Did someone report on the honey bees? There is a new hive in the back of the barn, thanks to a friend of the garden.  For the first 2 weeks they feed on sugar water as they get used to their new home and find where to feed.  But could they be in a better spot?  They complement the chickens perfectly (which by the way couldn’t have been happier with all the weeded greens we threw their way.)

by Mark Sandeen

It would be hard to imagine better days for working in the garden than we’ve had the last couple of Saturdays. Cool, crisp air – Blue skies – and lots of friendly people.

I thought you might be interested in how we are doing this year compared to last year at this time.  We had a wonderful growing season last year – and the garden got off to a great start last year.  But because of the late snow, just about everything at the garden has been delayed a bit this year.

Our first work day last year was March 14th. We started a week later this year on March 22nd. The snow and cold weather delayed our first harvest by almost three weeks.

We brought our first asparagus and rhubarb harvest to the food pantry on April 17th last year.

We brought our first asparagus and rhubarb harvest to the food pantry on May 7th – almost three weeks later than last year. The cold also affected the amount of our asparagus – we had 13 pounds last year and only 9 pounds this year.

But our harvest at the garden seems to be catching up to last year fabulous numbers – after that slow start.

We’ve harvested 176 pounds of produce so far this year – compared to 204 pounds of produce this time last year.

We had almost 40 pounds of wonderful produce today, so it looks like we are running a little less than one week behind our harvest numbers from last year at this time.

Our top three items so far this year are bok choy, potatoes, and lettuce, weighing in at 45 lbs., 32 lbs., and 31 lbs. Those three items made up a little more than 60% of all the produce we brought to the food pantry so far this year.

Last year at this time we had delivered 78 lbs. of lettuce, 30 lbs. of zucchini and 7 lbs. of potatoes.

So far this year we’ve delivered asparagus, basil, beets, bok choy, broccoli, cabbage, cilantro, dill, garlic, lettuce, mint, onions, parsley, potatoes, raspberries, radishes, peas, rhubarb, scallions, spinach, squash, strawberries, sugar snap peas, swiss chard, tarragon, thyme and zucchini.

We’ve had a lot less rain this year – 14.6 inches from March 1 to July 16, compared to 21.6 inches last year over the same period.

To be fair, a lot of the rain last year came in those two huge storms in March. We had 13.6 inches of rain in March alone.

From April 1, 2010 to July 16, 2010 – we only had 8 inches of rain.

This year we’ve had 50% more rain during the same period – with 12.3 inches from April 1, 2011 to July 16, 2011.

Any bets on where we’ll end up this year at the end of the growing season?