We haven’t had a chance to even tell you too much what’s been going on at the Farm lately. From the moment we started the farm, we’ve been so busy planting a full array of heirloom/organic vegetables and supporting the eight neighborhood schools we invited to tend their own berms. There is SO much food being grown in the space here, it’s amazing. But we just wanted to take the opportunity to recap how fast we went from open lawn to farm:
Farm berms on Opening Day waiting to be planted.
In the cold, late Winter, we started with a pile of dark, healthy, rich soil, then with the help of strong backs and arms of our volunteers, we shaped them into 100+ empty berms.
Through a chilly spring planted early crops of peas, arugula, radishes, beets, turnips, and numerous varieties of lettuce and greens. We also worked hard at getting our summer plants started in the cold frames while we waiting for warmer weather to arrive before we could put them in the ground.
Thinning early lettuce
It took a while for the ground to warm up, but by May we were planting summer squashes, beans, edamame, sunflowers, and of course, keeping up with the new and interesting weeds that keep appearing. There is one in particular, an edible weed called Lamb Quarters, that keeps showing up aplenty, and it has been enjoyed, sautéed with a bit of garlic and salt, on more than one of our farmer’s plates this spring.
Bed of lettuce
Some think Summer officially starts when the first tomato plant goes into the ground. Finally in May, when the warm weather was here to stay and the night temperature no longer risked dipping below 50 degrees, we planted the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and herbs!! We planted a few dozen of our own heirloom plants we started from seed, as well as the beautiful tomato and eggplant plants generously donated by Pamela Page, including rare heirloom varieties with names like, Blonde Kopfchen, Aunt Ruby’s German Green, Henderson Pink.
All in all, there are close to 100 different varieties growing on the farm—and that’s not counting the types of vegetables that the schools and the Adopt-a-plot farmers are growing in their own berms.
