Lexington Interfaith Garden

by Janet Kern

Weather – cold and wet ; enough said. Nevertheless we had six volunteers from Temple Emunah and Church of Our Redeemer. Carla gave a tour of the gardens for the new volunteers, who were amazed that the garden had already yielded spinach, rhubarb and chard for the Food Pantry. Using an old broom handle, holes were made a few inches deep and apart for the planting of two rows of leeks. I believe Carla said that the only things left to be planted are peppers and tomatoes!

The weather was perfect for laying down (wet) newspaper between the rows of peas and covering with hay to keep the weeds down and provide clear walking paths. With more rain in the forecast, we knew that the hay would become nice and wet and be matted down.( Dry and sunny would mean that all the hay and newspaper would blow away with one gust of wind). We also planted more chard to fill in one of the rows where some seeds had not germinated.

There was some evidence of critters – a big rabbit hole near the strawberries, and Susan actually watched the large, (and presumably very happy and well-fed) field mouse in the compost heap for a few minutes.

Having used up most of the hay and since most of us were feeling a bit chilled, Carla let us go early at 5:40!

by Barbara Munkres

On this cloudy, cool day volunteers from Hancock and Pilgrim joined to cultivate and weed at the garden. In addition, more beans were planted in rows where there were gaps in the young seedlings.

Lettuce

Strawberries are looking great!

Two types of squash, watermelon and pumpkin seeds were planted in hills near the entrance of the garden. More bok choy was planted, too.

Buckwheat hulls were sprinkled around some of the seedlings already up, and Fishimulchin was used to fertilize bok choy, beets and cabbage. It’s a combination of fish and seaweed……and an interesting brand name, but Carla says it doesn’t smell so great!

Putting buckwheat hulls down

Volunteers at the garden

Mulching along the south fence was the last chore: wet newspapers were spread out between the fence and the planting area, then covered with a layer of straw. This keeps the weeds down and creates a nice path to walk on throughout the summer.

Most exciting were the vegetables ready to go to the Food Pantry: seven of the largest lettuce heads, a half pound of radishes, one and a half pounds of asparagus, one quarter pound of green onions, a pound of rhubarb, and some spinach! To add to the vegetables, Carla had several boxes of eggs……the hens are laying faster than her family can consume the eggs.

Radishes, Lettuce & Rhubarb

Fresh Eggs from the garden

There were many workers at the pantry when we arrived with the wheelbarrow of fresh food. Today is the day of food collection by the US Mail Carriers, so the pantry was ready for an influx of prepared food in cans and boxes. Everyone seemed delighted to see the fresh food from the Interfaith Garden as well. Eggs from Carla’s hens were well received, too.

by Mark Sandeen

Volunteers at the Garden

Watering the Zucchini

This Saturday, a group of volunteers from Hancock Church, Lexington Catholic Community and our local boy scout troop met at the Interfaith Garden on a beautiful spring morning to do some planting, weeding and harvesting in the garden.

We harvested all the asparagus that was high enough to eat as well as some healthy looking rhubarb and brought them to the Food Pantry.

Rhubarb & Asparagus Harvest

Rhubarb Leaves

You may not know this, but the very large rhubarb leaves on the top of those very tasty red stalks of rhubarb contain toxins. I’m told you’d have to eat about 10 pounds of rhubarb leaves before you suffered any ill effects. But just to be safe, we cut the large rhubarb leaves off the stalks and put them in the compost bin.

Last week, we put up some plastic mesh along the rows of climbing peas, so that the germinating vines would have some supports. This week, we inspected the rows of peas and filled in the rows by planting new seeds where last week’s plantings hadn’t germinated.

Peas and Onions

Eggplant and Basil

We also planted a row of skinny European eggplant next to a row of basil plants. I’m already imagining what a great meal those two together would make… Eggplant parmesan with some fresh basil on top. Mmm good.

Speaking of wonderful spices – we found lots of volunteer spices growing among the potato rows. Connie and Maryann carefully dug up the cilantro growing in the potato rows and transplanted them to their own location over near the crookneck squash hill. We also seem to have volunteer dill growing all over the garden, but for now, those sprouts are quite tiny, so we left them in place.

Everyone had a lot of fun and the chickens sure appreciated the weed greens we gave them to munch on.

by Barbara Munkres

There were about ten helpers at the Garden Tuesday, a pleasant day for working….not too hot, cold or windy. Temple Emunah provided most of the workers, with Pilgrim Church providing three.

There was plenty to do: Eli, who is working on a Boy Scout badge in gardening, has been at the Garden frequently this spring. He showed me how to plant the lettuce seedlings Carla provided, both red and green, about 12 inches apart. After planting, he watered them and we sprinkled buckwheat hulls around the base of each plant as a mulch. In the photo below, Teddi Marin and Carla survey the far corner.
You can see rows of onions coming up and beyond that, several rows of spinach of various ages. Later these were watered, but not too much, as rain was expected Tuesday night. Some shallots were planted.

Lettuce Rows

Larry Marin planted zucchini in two hills nearby. The idea was to plant six pairs of seeds in each hill. Later, the weaker seedling of the pairs will be eliminated.

Removing garlic mustard weed

In the photo below, I think we have peas, which needed to be cultivated to remove weeds. Down by the fence, Carla and Eli are discussing how to hill up the onions a bit to prevent soil washing out in the coming rain.

Later, a group of about five workers attacked a big patch of garlic mustard beyond the garden near the woods. They must have been successful because they had four or five large garbage bags full of the prolific weed by the time we finished.

Meanwhile, the elegant scarecrow watched over it all.

Our Elegant Scarecrow

Thanks to Mary Mackie for bringing her camera and taking photos.

by Amy Swanson

Volunteers from: Hancock and First Parish

Digging Potato Furrows

Planting Potatoes

Main task of the day: Plant 3 varieties of potatoes including Red Norlands, Golden Yukon and Katahdins

Harriet volunteered to prep the seed potatoes. They look like baby potatoes with a lot of eyes. The trick is to cut the potatoes in chunks with at least 2 eyes per chunk. Since these seed potatoes were on the small size, Harriet halved most of them.

Meanwhile, others took shovels and dug out straight trenches about 8 or 10 inches deep. The dirt is piled along the side of the
trench and kept handy (more on that later.)

Planting is very easy. Just take the cut potato piece, shove it cut side down in the bottom of the trench and cover with a little dirt. Once we see little green plants (maybe in about 2 weeks?) more dirt is piled on top. This is repeated several times over the growing cycle and eventually the trenches get filled up and then become little hills as more dirt keeps being moved on top of the potato plants.

Potatoes like it cool and by keep piling dirt regularly on top during the growing cycle, we are creating the nice, cooler growing environments that they love.

Other journal observations:
· It’s good to rotate where you plant, especially root vegetables that sap a lot of nutrients out of the soil. Keeps a sharp eye for beds being moved around. This year the peas are planted where the potatoes were last year; the potatoes are planted where we had lettuce, onions and broccoli; and tomatoes will go where we had spinach and chard.
· We had more discussion about nitrogen fixing. As you may recall, the small garden tested very low in nitrogen, so dried blood and urea was added. Apparently in the old days, urine was collected and sprinkled on the gardens. One of our volunteers suggested there might be even more ways to recycle at home…or not!
· Looking for more evidence that spring has come to the garden by checking up on where seeds have been planted. But the cold weather is not helping anything but the lettuce, radishes and garlic. Peas not up yet, nor the bok choy. Spinach appearing in 2 out of our 3 rows. Asparagus not up yet either…so looking like we are more like 3 weeks behind last year.
· Durn those rabbits! They went after all the new strawberry plants. Funny, they didn’t touch the legacy bed which is immediately adjacent?!
· Found a cut worm while digging. Ugh! But apparently it was a delicacy for the chickens. I tried to take a picture of it but it was too ugly and it caused the camera to go out of focus. (Yeah, I am blaming that all on the pest, not on the operator.
· Did you know that Wilson’s estimates that they have 5 ft of loam in some of their fields?! After 30 years of gardening at 5 Harrington, Carla thinks she has about 3 ft. It takes time and care to build up good organic material.
· Barbara done good! We now have a scale that seems so right in the barn! Can’t wait to put it to use.

Our new scale