Lexington Interfaith Garden

By Diane Rondeau

I met Shirley B. at the garden this evening and we turned on the sprinklers…while we were waiting for the garden to water we weeded under the sprinkler – nice and refreshing …..

The chickens made a hole in the their fence and we got to chase them back into their pen and then block the hole with wood. We let someone know inside the house and they said they would have the gentleman who is watching the place take a look at it.

Looks like we’ll have the rest of the radishes – some zucchini, leaks, and maybe onions parsley and beans on Saturday .. I’ll be there (July 3rd) about 7:45 to harvest and water – anyone who wants to join me can (no community is scheduled ) as Carla’s is on vacation.

If not, don’t worry I enjoy it  and will manage ok……
God Bless
Diane

By Amy Swanson

Diane Rondeau, Keith West and I just came back from harvesting this fine Saturday morning.  I know our partners from Temple Emmunah were there on Tues (and back again tomorrow) weeding and miracle-growing and keeping the garden in fine shape.  And next week in Carla’s absence, Diane along with others from Lexington Catholic Community will be stopping in to water and see what else needs to get done.  We are in good hands.

First:  Here’s what one corner of the garden looks like!  It’s hard to get a shot with everything in it.  But if you knew what you were looking for, here are some of the vegetables you might be able to detect in this picture: potatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, tomatoes, leeks (?), basil and on the far right a few fronds from the corn patch.  And this depicts only about ¼ to 1/3rd of the garden.

Garden on June 26th

Second:  We delivered a little over 11 pounds of freshly cut produce this morning to the Lexington Food Pantry.  Included:  the last of the peas (tomorrow the plants get pulled and added to the compost pile); dill, basil, lettuce, leeks, zinnias, rhubarb (contributed from Diane’s garden) and radishes.

Harvest Produce - June 26

Third:  What I learned:

You don’t handle bean plants if it is at all wet, since the plants don’t like being manhandled until they are completely dry.  So no beans were picked since they were very moist from the dew.

The zucchini weren’t big enough to harvest but when they get to about 6″ to 8″ we would look to cut them WITH the flower since they look so artful.  Having never seen zucchini except in the grocery store, I had no idea about the flower.

I also learned what asparagus looks like when you let it go to seed.  Those “soldier-like spears” that first impressed me standing at attention have lost all sense of discipline and have grown 6 ft tall and grabbed a lot of garden space!

Asparagus gone to seed

By Amy Swanson

I stopped by the garden this morning and Carla showed off the newest garden inhabitant.  This time it was fauna, not flora.  The recent mystery was what was eating the corn, snapping the stalk off at ground level. Raccoons?  Nope.  Turns out it was an opossum, which was discovered this morning..playing ‘possum of course!

Opossum Trapped

BTW, it sure looks to me that the corn is ahead of the schedule implied by  the old saying about needing to be knee-high by the 4th of July!

I had to take pictures as well of the potato plants. One variety is flowering ahead of the other varieties.  Carla was reporting that the “re-mounding” happened last week (?) and the next thing to do would be mulching them to keep them cool and moist for the coming months.  3 bales of straw wait to be placed next week.  (Take notice Hancock and First Parish volunteers.)

Rows of Potatoes

Last item to share:  It’s good to give the vegetables a good wash before delivering to the Food Pantry.  I delivered a load the other week with Carla and we did not appreciate how much extra can be delivered along with the lettuce leaves, hiding in their abundance.

By: Barbara Munkres

On Tuesday, June 1, I was in Vermont helping to weed my daughter-in-law’s garden, so Sou Chu reported for Pilgrim Church on that day:

The weather at 4:30 was dark and cloudy.  Carla and Sou picked snowpeas and other peas.   They transplanted two kinds of lettuce from the small plot to the larger garden.  There they split up the clumps and planted them. Carla decided to use the soft fencing around the new lettuce plants to protect them.  There followed some    sampling of new strawberries!  “They were the tastiest I ever had!”reported Sou.  Rain began around 5:45 and gardening ended shortly after!

Due to the holiday weekend, there was gardening only on Tuesday this week.

Our Vermont relatives (gardeners all) are cheering for our Interfaith efforts here in Lexington.  We came home with fresh eggs from our daughter’s chickens.  Life is good!

By: Amy Swanson

We are running a contest to predict how much produce the interfaith garden will produce this year. We started the contest on May 23rd during our Garden Blessing event.

Have you entered a guess on how many pounds of produce the garden will grow and deliver this year?  I’ve left the poster, box and guess forms at the barn at the garden.  Get in the fun and encourage your volunteers to participate as well.  You can either fill out the form and drop in the box or email me your guess.  We are tracking the estimates and this much I can tell you…the estimates range from 200 to 30,000 pounds!

If you’d like to see a spreadsheet showing the guesses so far, click here.