Community Garden

Amy is a careful reader of various town blogs and mailing lists, and last May when she found out that a couple of spots were opening up in the town's Community Garden, she put our name into the lottery. Lo and behold, we were able to snag a small plot (10 by 20 feet) ... I don't think either of us qualify as expert gardeners, but we decided to give it a go.  In spite of our inexperience and the small space, I think we both really enjoyed it. 

May is actually a bit late when it comes to starting a garden, at least in this area, but we swung into action and began prepping/plotting/planning.  Photo from our first visit (doesn't look like much):

We visit the plot a couple of times (Idlewild West #39A)  the second week of May to survey the scene, and picking rocks and weeds and other bits of debris. After the first visit:

Then we had another three or four visits just breaking up the soil, getting out more rocks, and digging in bag after bag of compost and manure (very sweaty, not particularly pleasant labor). Whew. After that though the soil was starting to look good. More photos:

Then we laid down landscape cloth:

At this point the scene was set.  I had been looking on line for sources of seeds, but a lot of the places that I had wanted to order from were completely swamped and running behind (we were in a pandemic, after all). 

Amy had the idea of going to visit Hutchins Farm (an organic farm/farmstand in Concord where Oscar spent a summer working) to buy seedlings -- that turned out to be a really good move. They didn't have everything that we want, but they had enough of the things we wanted that we were able to jump-start the garden quickly (and nearly all the things we picked up there worked out well).

We bought some red kale seedlings, two tomatillo seedlings (not sure why in retrospect -- somehow we had convinced ourselves that Oscar liked them?), and three tomato varieties: Sungold (cherry), Juliet (cherry), and Green Zebra (an interesting medium-sized variety with green flesh and sort of mottled skin).  Surprisingly, they also had rhubarb plants (hurrah, always one of my favorites), so we picked one up. Also bought some peppers -- a couple of small hot pepper plants (can't quite remember the varieties) and a single tiny Shishito pepper seedling (Oscar introduced us to shishito peppers back when he was working there). We rounded things off with a collection of marigolds.  Amy also picked up a melon seedling -- it was some sort of husk melon, not sure what the variety was.

Couple of shots of the garden (this is around May 25th) when we finally had the seedlings in:

Fast forward around three weeks, and here we are. At this point the tomatoes and kale were thriving, and I had planted some green onions (I picked up a couple of seedlings labeled "big green onions" (this was in fact an accurate description of how they turned out) from a rack sitting outside the H-Mart parking lot in Burlington.

Tomatoes can grow pretty quickly when they want to:

Here's our rhubarb and the tiny Shishito pepper (which would later on turn into a big bush):

No fruit yet, but plenty of growth.

This is the single melon plant, which after a couple of weeks was growing really quickly (I think at this point we realized that we would have to create a much bigger trellis for it, otherwise it would have completely taken over our tiny garden):

At this point my order from Johnny's seeds had finally come in, so I planted snowpeas and bush beans:

We also planted collards. I actually started these inside and then transplanted them, but they are still ridiculously tiny compared to the kale:

Here's the trellis we built for the melon (note the repurposed hockey stick, heh):

... and a trellis for the snowpeas. These unfortunately didn't work out all that well (I think I started them about two months late, they are really more of a cool-weather crop):

Weeds were not a big issue (landscape cloth worked well) but leeping things watered was definitely a challenge -- this was not the sort of garden where you could just leave it alone for a week or two (that would have been a mistake). We visited every couple of days if we could, mainly to fill up our watering cans from the communal water barrels and hand carry it over to our plot to water.

Fast forward a couple of weeks (I think this is the second week of July) and the plants were starting to crank out some produce. Hot peppers and tomatoes:

The carrots I planted next to the onions were starting to sprout:

Rhubarb and kale:

A shot of the interior of the plot. It was actually getting kind of hard to maneuver around inside (too overgrown):

More produce:

We didn't get very many melons, maybe a half dozen or so, but the ones that we did get were fabulous:

We made lots of sauce:

Amy picking tomatoes. In August they were still picking up steam:

The tomatillos were kind of a puzzle -- we really didn't know what to do with them. Amy found one good recipe for stew that we made a couple of times, but I had a hard time coming up with ways to use them. About the only thing I hit on was a recipe for roasted tomatillo salsa (below), so I made quite a lot of that:

More tomatoes!

Amy found a recipe for "Tarte Provencale" (tomatoes, Gruyere, and olives) that was incredibly good-- we made it a couple of times:

Last couple of melons:

In October things started to wind down. The tomatoes and peppers lasted for a surprisingly long time, I think they could have kept cranking out produce if the temps held, but we eventually had enough frosts that they threw in the towel. Kale and collards still ok though:

In November we finally got some snow, so at that point it seemed like the right time to take things down at last. We mulched the rhubarb (hope it comes back strong next year), planted a garlic patch, and took up all plants and landscape cloth:

Looking forward to next year...?

More July Happenings

A few more July photos.

From the Peabody-Essex Museum; Amy and I went to take in a visiting Rodin exhibit. They had a very interesting video showing the entire process used for casting a bronze piece from a plaster model -- I had no idea how complicated and labor-intensive it was. 

This was my first visit to the Peabody-Essex -- it's a much bigger museum than I had realized.

This past weekend I drove Lydia out to Amherst to drop her off at her NUTC frisbee camp (very hot! CT valley can be sweltering in the summer), then I decided to head on up and spend the night in Vermont visiting with my mom and brother. Also had dinner with Sue and Bob, who came over Sat night.

In the morning I spend some time working in the garden, staking and weeding the asparagus.

The garden got a very late start this year because of my mom's pneumonia (which really knocked her for a loop), but it was hard to tell judging from all of the green growing things. Fantastic broccoli this year, it really took off (also chard, peas, onions, potatoes, ...).

My brother came down for breakfast a bit later in the morning; Ma made her traditional sourdough pancake breakfast with bacon, also fresh peaches (yum).

Some photos from my brother's cabin. He has been doing emergency roof repairs, having discovered major leaks upon arriving for the visit.  I spend a couple of hours helping with the last little bit, mainly cleaning up the old shingles but also helping to lay the last shingles on the section that was being repaired. Roofing is a nasty business -- no matter how hard you try you always get covered with tar.

Kind of a short visit (less than 24 hours), but it was nice to see everyone.

Summer Outings

Some photos from late June and early July... 

This shot is Lydia getting ready for a 6-day AMC hiking trip starting in the White Mountains, starting at Pinkham Notch. The pack weighed in at around 25 pounds, but that was before adding in food and gear (final starting weight: 50 pounds). It seemed like a good group, 8 kids total and two instructors/leaders. They did get rained on a bit, but everyone seems to have survived.

Next up: fourth of July weekend in Tyringham with my dad and Joanie. Ethan and I arrived Friday night, but Amy had the unenviable chore of driving up to NH to collect our daughter. The drive up took around 4 hours and then the drive back down to Tyringham took around 5, so it was an automotive marathon for the two of them.

Weather was fantastic, it was really a treat to be outdoors enjoying it.

The field just south of the house was covered in lilies-- very beautiful. In and among all of the regular lilies was this weird pagoda thing. Joanie says that it comes up every year this way.

The field across the driveway is getting very overgrown now; the local guy who (very occasionally) mows it had a heart attack recently and has been getting way behind on everything. A big section of the field now has grown up with thistles, eek.

Saturday morning we tackled the job of weeding the blueberry patch and covering it with netting, a big hairy project. Everyone helped out.

Ethan stringing netting:

Selfie:

A shot of the solar panel, which seems to be doing fine:

Joanie putting the finishing touches on dinner: steelhead trout on a bed of soba noodles (a favorite):

Ethan is in there somewhere underneath all that hair:

It's long enough now that he does the pony tail thing:

Yours truly:

The next gardening was cutting dead limbs off a couple of apple trees. Not as easy as it sounds, I definitely got a good sweat (the kids boycotted this particular session). A shot of my Dad at work:

We did some mowing under the trees beforehand with my dad's mower, which is a pretty handy gadget. It weighs a ton, but it has a motor drive, so you don't have to exert a lot of energy pushing. It seems to be capable of chewing up just about anything short of large logs.

Turkey feather, found on a hike. Or to be more accurate, my dad pointed it out on the trail just before I was about to step on it (I hadn't noticed it at all):

This one I did notice, on my way back from one of my runs:

Lydia is part-way through the Lord of the Rings series; they had listened to the book on tape on the way down from NH, but she wanted to continue, so my dad dug out this copy (cool cover).  This book is almost as old as I am (1965).

More goofing off with selfies:

On Monday I was worried that Ethan would never get out of bed, but he did at last get up around 10:30, so we packed up canoe + kayak and headed up to Hudson's pond (now Steadman's pond, since the land was donated to the Berkshire Natural Resources Council) for a paddle.

Water was fabulous -- we took turns with the canoe and had some good swimming. Kids enjoyed it:

Not sure what the caption should be for this shot (?):

All in all it was a lovely weekend-- it was great to hike + swim and work in the garden, and be pampered by Joanie with wonderful meals (not to mention nice stuff from the garden).