Growing to Give has our GREEN THUMB CHALLENGE coming up in July, with four possible times to garden:
- July 7, 1 – 4pm
- July 8, 11 – 2pm
- July 8, 12 – 3pm
- July 11, 1 – 4pm
Whether you think you have a green thumb or a brown thumb, it doesn’t matter to us. Maybe you could share some gardening insights or we could share some of ours with you. It’s an opportunity to come to the farm, take in the beauty, get some dirt therapy, and raise a bit of money to help G2G continue to do what we do. Sign Up Here!
And here are some of the things we did this past week!
We welcomed two more interns from Bowdoin College–Neena and Libby. They jumped right in and helped us glean on Wednesday. We actually had a lot of help gleaning that day and sent out box after box of lettuce, chard, kale, Hakurei, and rhubarb. Riley is showing off a lettuce bouquet with five varieties, all equally delicious!
While all that harvesting was happening, Genevieve and Peggy started on crimping our Winter Rye. With the help of David and the interns, we got four plots crimped and tarped. Now we need some warm sunshine, and, hopefully in two weeks, we will be ready to transplant seedlings directly into those plots.
Friday brought the fabulous fixers. Bob put together a cardboard corral to help us maintain control of all those broken down boxes. (We will always be happy to take any brown cardboard, with only black ink, that you might want to drop off.)
John, Diana, and Burnham helped us set up the irrigation in the original Rimol greenhouse. I am eager to get cucumbers and companion plants going there. That will be the last greenhouse that needs to be planted.
On Friday, we started uncovering some lovely, healthy heirloom tomato plants. I showed Monique how to use a Russian weeder to get rid of a few unwanted weeds. She told me she felt like that was cheating! She and Riley mulched them so the Girl Scouts could do some companion planting on Saturday. They were coming to work on their Gardening Badge. With the dramatic background of stormy clouds, volunteers cleaned up a bed of cabbage. I thought they would make beautiful subjects for a painting.
The Girl Scouts were a big help and planted an entire row of basil alongside the heirloom tomatoes. They did a bit of weeding on another plot, walked the farm while Carrie explained different projects we have going on, and, of course, they enjoyed a bit of goat time. Thanks, Troupe #1407. You girls were great! (Moms, too!) When I took their photo, one little volunteer said to me, “you didn’t get me in the photo!” Okay sorry, what if you get your own cameo shot? Could the farm report be an influencer with Girl Scouts?
Other Saturday projects included Marsha and Wendy planting peppers and amaranth. David and I tackled a particularly weedy path with cardboard and wood chips. Lily started interplanting alyssum with a plot of onions. The Rimol got prepped and companion plants are now in.
The sky was very dramatic on Saturday. Going from blue cloud filled skies to threatening showers that had us rushing around to avoid getting drenched!
We have a great team this year, with two more yet to arrive. With the help of our supportive volunteers, I just have a feeling it’s going to be a bountiful summer!
Always grateful,
Theda