Hi Friends:
Happy Friday and welcome to another garden update! Thanks so much for all you all do to keep the garden thriving and the friendships blooming!
Here's what happened in the garden this week and what's coming up! Reporting for us once again, is Heather:
This week: We processed harvested pinto beans. Threshing- (basically involves hitting piles of dried bean plants with large sticks until the dried pods release the beans.) LONG AND ARDUOUS PROCESS! We did this Monday and had a good crew! After we threshed out all the beans we winnowed the chaff out of them by waiting for a breeze and slowly spilling the beans into a bucket. The wind removes the chaff and the beans are cleanly sorted. Interesting fact- there has to be some level of”chaf” remaining with the beans, otherwise the weevils will eat the beans. I like this metaphor… In this created world there is no perfection. We ended up with 225 lbs of pinto beans. We have them on top of a tarp in the trailer and move them outside the barn in the morning and inside at night so we can get maximum sun drying time and avoid dew or any rain. Humidity has been one of our biggest teachers this year. On Tuesday, we weeded the newly planted patch of lettuces, arugula, cilantro and etc. The rows look beautiful and have grown so much in just a week’s time. Wednesday, it was time to spray (natural pest deterrent) for squash bugs and harvest. We had a great group and we got a bunch done with all the help. Onions were spread out over drying racks, newly harvested tomatoes were wiped down, weighed and put in the cooler. Old tubs and bins that had gotten dirty were cleaned. Blueberry and Strawberry patches were weeded. Thursday, we were blessed with another great group of volunteers! We harvested tomatoes and cut back dead growth in the hoop house. Weeded herb garden. Enjoyed fellowship! The Mexican garden was weeded and we finished up some processing of previous days' tomato harvest Harvest total- 330 lbs (includes 222 lbs of pinto beans harvested) Volunteer hours total- 63 On the docket for next week:
Plant seedlings from the seed house- including radishes and other lettuces
Continue harvesting tomatoes and cutting back dead growth in the hoophouse
Construct a new system to support our giant tomatillo plants in the Mexican garden
Continue monitoring pumpkins for squash bugs.
Plant additional herbs to herb garden and prepare a new bed for sweetgrass
Thanks Heather and all that gave of themselves to care for our community through the work of the garden this week!
Please continue to spread the word about CSA and volunteer opportunities! Word of mouth is the best way to advocate for the work of the garden. That being said, social media is powerful as well. Please share your pictures and posts and tag the garden and sharing our posts increases our exposure exponentially.
There are many ways to support the garden: Share posts, join the CSA, come out and volunteer or make a monthly or one time donation through our website. Every gift supports all the work of the garden to feed our nuclear community and the community at large.
With thanks to you all!
Patti Jean (PJ) Spinillo, CSA Coordinator, The Garden at Spring Forest csa@springforest.org http://www.springforest.org https://www.facebook.com/prayer.work.table.neighbor/ @thegardenatspringforest 336-266-9475 cell