We were excited to harvest and send out our first donation this week. Fresh, sweet organic spinach was delivered to Woodside Senior Living in Lisbon. Judy, a volunteer with Growing to Give is our contact person and reports that one resident is especially fond of spinach, we were happy to deliver! An interesting sidenote to Friday’s harvest is that it is the exact same date as last year for our first spinach harvest. The seasonal lengthening of daylight here in Maine definitely determines our harvest date.
In our continuing promotion of all things elderberry; we planted directly into a weed suppressant tarp that was laid last fall. With the help of Carrie’s parents, a hammer, and a piece of rebar (the ground was still a bit frozen), a hole was created. Compost and biochar were added and the slip planted. It’s an experiment, will keep you posted. Continuing with elderberries, all the rest of our pruned slips went into pots with half topsoil, half compost. They are now in the dark while we wait for roots to develop. We must have close to 100 of these slips potted up. We hope to have them available for our plant sale on Saturday, May 22.
Lots of seeds were started again this week. Volunteers started chard, cabbage, parsley, eggplant, and tons of alyssum. We are trying some saved alyssum seeds to see if we can start plants from our own seed. Alyssum will be used in lots of interplanting around the farm. This coming week there will be lots of tomatoes to plant over 1,000 plants are needed for the farm and the sale. I have received lots of requests for cherry tomatoes, so we have 5 varieties in stock.
Another tunnel is filling up with lettuce. A nice place to be on a chilly Maine morning.
One of our new volunteers this week was Meredyth. She lives in Camden and volunteered on her way back from Portland. I wanted to post this photo of the dirt work she accomplished for us while she was here. The volunteers at Growing to Give range this year in ages 9-75 and everyone has so much to offer. So many people are coming together to help us grow and distribute food to our communities. Having Meredyth stop by to help us on her trip home just reminded me of how lucky we are to be surrounded by such generosity of spirit.
This week’s report ends with me dressed as Paddington Bear. This is how I cope, to deal with what nature throws at me! 🙂
Thanks, everyone, Theda