Lexington Interfaith Garden

by Barbara Munkres

Kelly Suber and daughter Joanna from Sacred Heart, Lexington Catholic Community, and Christina Sym, Sandy Gardiner, Duncan Todd and Barbara Munkres from Pilgrim Church tended the garden on Saturday morning, April 17.

It was a cold day: 41 degrees with a stiff wind. The first work:
Duncan Todd hung up the new scale in the doorway where the digital scale hung last year! It is ready to weigh the asparagus when it comes up and is tall enough to pick.

Carla gave us a tour of the gardens and we saw neat rows of parsley that had been planted as seedlings. Between the rows of parsley were small garlic plants sprouting from seeds. The asparagus had not come up yet as of Saturday AM.
Carla instructed us and worked along with us. Many uninvited plants were sprouting, and several of us worked at weeding.

Remember the newspapers that helped mark the paths last year? Saturday would have been a good time to spread them, but the wind would have swept them to the fence on the eastern side of the garden! Carla decided that it would be wasted effort to attempt that job.

Kelly Suber and her daughter Joanna helped plant red and white onions, and Joanna planted a row of chard from seed.

Sandy Gardiner and Christina Sym also helped plant the onions. Christina spread compost, and tilled the soil. Duncan and Sandy and Barbara were part of the weeding team.

There was a festive atmosphere that day because of the big Patriot’s Day Weekend. On the green, flags were flying and bunting was flapping in the stiff breeze. It was fun to be at the garden that day. I think all of us went home happy and satisfied, but perhaps Joanna was happiest: Carla gave her some dandelions to feed to the
chickens when the garden work was finished!

by Amy Swanson

Our crew came from Follen and Hancock: Carla, Mark, Harriet, Susan, Keith, Lu, Roger, Marie, Amy

Journal observations:

• Looks like we are running about one week behind vs. last year…both in terms of what we are planting as well as signs of growth on returning plants
• Soil tests on small garden came back…deficient in nitrogen, so Carla added urea and cow blood (?). Also planting peas which will add even more nitrogen back.
• No signs of asparagus soldiers yet…still hiding out under the composted manure.
• First rhubarb knobs can be seen.
• Garlic is looking good. Was visible 2 weeks ago when I last worked, and even more so today.
• Amazingly, I miss the garden paths?! I was so used to them last year, keeping my big feet off the plants. With so little planted as of yet, they really haven’t been necessary. Soon tho! (Memo to self: bring newspaper next time I work to add to Carla’s supply for creating paths.)

What we did:
• Cleared straw off of strawberry beds
• Installed heavy metal stakes which will be the first step of a fence for the peas
• Removed stump from old boysenberry bush
• Planted spinach and bok choy
• Brought out the rosemary plant that wintered in the basement of the barn. Harriet did an excellent job of pruning it back.
• Planted peas in the small garden along its fence. As noted above, the peas will help the nitrogen problem.
• Tried to coax the new chickens out….shy critters, so far!
• Cleaned off stakes so they were available to reuse to identify new rows planted.
• Set up seedling pots for future planting using 50/50 of potting soil and composted manure

Ahead for Tues:
More planting of onions, leeks and lettuce.

by Amy Swanson

Rich Composted Manure

This early in the life of the garden, it’s all about the prep work to ensure wonderful, colorful, healthy food later.  So today was all about the manure, the composted manure. As promised, a big truckful was delivered from Great Brook Farm. If you are not familiar with this wonderful fertilizer, let me tell you that it is not stink, not stick and not as heavy as you think, despite being nicely moist.

Today, the goal was to spread about 4 inches on the small garden and the asparagus beds.  And then the garden will be rototilled, after which I bet there will be more manure to spread.  Despite the delayed start of warm weather, it is not too cold to start planting next week.  Carla has pea and lettuce seeds that will do just fine this time of year.

By the way, the garden is temporarily chickenless.  They went south for the winter!  (While Carla was away, a neighbor across the street- on the south side of Mass Ave- took them in.)  But rumor has it that some new residents are on the way and a familiar clucking soon will be heard.

Spreading Manure

Carla & Janet Prepping the Garden

by Amy Swanson

Welcome!

Getting ready

The Red Sox have their opening day, and so does the Interfaith Garden!  Our opening day was scheduled for Tues, March 22^nd.  However, on Monday afternoon, the 21^st, I sat at my desk looking out the window and saw my backyard disappearing under a white layer.  Hard to believe we were scheduled to start working at the Interfaith Garden the next afternoon.  But Carla knew her garden and said she was planning on it happening, so Tues was on.

Four of us showed up to work with Carla on this raw day– representing First Parish, Islamic Center of Wayland and Hancock.  Later we met Maria from First Baptist who stopped by to visit for the first time!  We were all met with the blackboard and its familiar message of welcome.

The garden looked pretty barren, but actually it has not been so dormant after all. Carla showed us the Austrian sweet pea that came up after the last harvest.  That will be rototilled back into the soil, adding good nitrogen.  In another corner, garlic was starting to come up.

Here are some of the tasks we did today:

• Cleaned and oiled some of the tools.
• Cleared the asparagus beds
• Took soil samples from the small garden to be sent away for testing
• Carla sprayed the blueberry bushes with mineral oil to ward off the winter moth.

Tomorrow the garden gets roto-tilled and perhaps on Saturday we will be ready to spread composted manure.  One of these days the scarecrow needs to get dressed.  His clothes are newly washed and ready to go.

Historically, faith communities have fed the less fortunate by organizing food pantries, soup kitchens, and other programs to combat hunger. Recently, we have broadened that work by planting our interfaith garden and donating the food we grow to the Lexington Food Pantry. Many people are just beginning to realize that growing food in this way also helps us to address climate change.

“When we think about global warming, we think about transportation, we think about how we heat our houses, but in fact, how we eat has just as big an impact on climate change.”  Michael Pollan, from the film Nourish

About one-fifth of climate change pollution comes from the food industry. That’s more than from all transportation combined.