Posts | Lexington Interfaith Garden | Growing Good Food for Good Neighbors

Year End Harvest Wrap Up

Posted on October 29, 2016 by Mark

In our 7th season at the garden, we delivered 1,740 pounds of produce to the food pantry. Our second best year! That compared to 1,666, 2015, 1,541, and 1,637 pounds of produced delivered by this time for the last four years.

At the top of the list was 221 pounds of bok choy, 217 pounds of tomatoes, 130 pounds of eggplant, 117 pounds of squash, 102 pounds of zucchini, 100 pounds of potatoes, 76 pounds of cabbage, 75 pounds of peppers, 68 pounds of swiss chard, 67 pounds of butternut squash, 58 pounds of cherry tomatoes, 53 pounds of acorn squash, 49 pounds of beans, 47 pounds of cucumbers, 46 pounds of lettuce, 43 pounds of radishes, 42 pounds of rhubarb, 33 pounds of pumpkins, 30 pounds of broccoli, 27 pounds of onions, 25 pounds of basil, 22 pounds of arugula, 18 pounds of leeks, 13 pounds of peas, 11 pounds of parslane, and 8 pounds of asparagus. We’ve also harvested beets, carrots, cauliflower, chives, dill, garlic, kale, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, scallions, spinach, tarragon, and thyme. 44 varieties in all!

In our first year we harvested 995 pounds of produce and 854 pounds of produce in our 2nd year.

In our 3rd and 4th years, we harvested 1,637 and 1,574 pounds of produce! Far above our track record for our first two years of harvest. We started keeping bees at the garden in our 3rd year, so perhaps they helped.

In our 5th year we had a record year, delivering 2,015 pounds of produce to the food pantry. That’s right, over a ton of produce!

We delivered 296 pounds of pumpkins, 225 pounds of bok choy, 197 pounds of potatoes, 195 pounds of cucumbers, 147 pounds of zucchini, 93 pounds of kale, 92 pounds of acorn squash, 91 pounds of tomatoes, 83 pounds of squash, 82 pounds of onions, 57 pounds of beans, 54 pounds of peppers, 48 pounds of eggplant, 46 pounds of lettuce, 37 pounds of swiss chard, 30 pounds of cabbage, 27 punds of cherry tomatoes, 26 pounds of leeks, 23 pounds of rhubarb, 22 pounds of beets and butternut squash. We also delivered wonderful spices, basil, chives, dill, mint, parsley, sage, scallions, tarragon, and thyme.

In our 6th year, we delivered 1,667 pounds of 45 different types of produce – but we did pretty well considering we had our latest start to the gardening year due to all the snow we had during the winter of 2015.

Our 2nd best year!

Here are all 44 varieties of produce we grew last year!

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At the Garden: 9/10/16

Posted on September 11, 2016 by JanetKern

Volunteers from: Redeemer, Follen, Grace, Hancock, Catholic Community and First Baptist

Weather: warm and muggy

Our harvest totaled 95 pounds going over to the Lexington Food Pantry: zucchini, yellow squash, delicate squash, tomatoes, bok choy, Swiss chard, cherry tomatoes, eggplant, radishes, broccoli, arugula, green peppers, parsley, basil, sage, tarragon

Drama at the Garden this morning! Carla had seen evidence that the Garden has been the feasting ground for some unwanted 4-legged guests. But they have evaded all her attempts to remove them. However, this morning, when 2 bunnies were spotted, all work was halted in order to try again with more manpower. Carla had a few volunteers systematically move together in a row to beat the leafy crops (under which the bunnies hide), driving the bunnies toward the open gate. This requires all the other volunteers to quickly scoot well away from the gate and freeze. Otherwise the bunnies will end up running away from everyone and never see the desired escape route via the open gate. We did have some success. One bunny made it out. So if any of you readers are at the Garden in the future and see another one of the 4-legged guests, now you will know what to do next!

By the way, Mark who tracks all the produce delivered out of the Garden, reports that as of today, we have donated 1,240 pounds to the Lexington Food Pantry this season. Bok Choy tops the list at 183 pounds, followed by tomatoes at 143 pounds.

To view more photos from the Interfaith Garden this year, see here.

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Harvest Report – August 13th

Posted on August 14, 2016 by Mark

So far this year we are off to a record start with 887 pounds of produce delivered to the food pantry, compared to 661, 843, 871, and 850 pounds of produced delivered by this time for the next best four years.

At the top of the list so far is 174 pounds of bok choy, 79 pounds of tomatoes, 78 pounds of zucchini, 52 pounds of potatoes, 43 pounds of both beans and eggplant, 40 pounds of cucumbers, 39 pounds of both cabbage and lettuce, 34 pounds of rhubarb, 32 pounds of swiss chard, 27 pounds of onions, 24 pounds of peppers, 23 pounds of cherry tomatoes, 22 pounds of radishes, 18 pounds of basil, 16 pounds of leeks, 15 pounds of squash, 11 pounds of parslane, plus 10 pounds of both broccoli and arugula, and 8 pounds of asparagus. We’ve also harvested beets, carrots, cauliflower, chives, dill, garlic, kale, mint, oregano, parsley, peas, rosemary, sage, scallions, spinach, tarragon, and thyme.

But…. we are experiencing extreme drought in Lexington.

According to the National Weather Service – Lexington has a Statistical Precipitation Index of between -2.0 and -2.5.

That means that the precipitation we have had this year is 2 to 2.5 standard deviations less than is average for this time of year.

Another way to look at this is that there is between 1 in 50 and 1 in a 100 probability that we would be experiencing a drought this severe.

The Board of Selectmen are considering if we should take any action to conserve water on Monday night at about 7:15 PM, if you want to weigh in.

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/Home/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?MA

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At the Garden – July 30, 2016

Posted on July 31, 2016 by JanetKern

Volunteers from: Hancock, Chinese Bible Church, Follen, LDS, First Baptist Weather: It’s summer, so sunny and warm!

Harvest: over 150 pounds of bok choy, basil, beets, radishes, carrots, purslane, onions, garlic, arugula, potatoes, tomatoes, Swiss chard, lettuce, green onions, broccoli tenders, zucchini, eggplant, cucumbers and probably more that I can’t remember! We sent 5 carts worth of produce to the Lex Food Pantry.

Everywhere I hear friends and neighbors lamenting the tough times their gardens are going through with the lack of rain. And vegetable gardens aren’t yielding as much. Not true at the Interfaith Garden. I checked the history of the Garden last year and we didn’t achieve these types of yields until more like the end of August.

Today’s jackpot was in potatoes and bok choy. I don’t have the numbers but it’s likely over 50 pounds alone of bok choy were harvested. Our volunteers kept coming in with pallet after pallet and it was a challenge keeping up with the weighing and loading. We also had a lot of potatoes. One volunteer said she liked digging up the potatoes because it was like doing a treasure hunt. Carla also added zucchini blossoms. Carla said she had enough of the zucchini and taking the male blossoms was like exercising birth control for zucchini!

Here are a few pictures of the Pantry volunteers accepting and organizing all the vegetables. It’s a lot of work to sort it into smaller bundles appropriate for fair distribution to all the pantry clients. The c

orn seen in the picture was not from the Interfaith Garden, but most of the rest of the produce was. We ran out of room to unload in the kitchen so there were even more of our pallets waiting in the other room.

pantry1