First Food Shelf Delivery

Thursday we delivered to the food shelf for the first time. We brought greens, tomatoes, onions, potatoes - well, you know what we're growing by now. The thing is, our produce was fresh and bright and about the only non-packaged food we saw. Food shelves, by their nature, need non-perishable donations. But boy, what it means to be able to put something fresh on the table with the macaroni and cheese.

We're going to make a difference here.

Harvest Weights

Just a fraction of what was harvested for delivery today.
Here's the rest:
watermelon - 16 lbs
green bean - 3 lbs
cucumber - 7 lbs
eggplant - 1 lb
carrot - 3 lbs
onion - 2 lbs
tomato - 4 lbs
potato - 3 lbs
cabbage - 4 lbs
musk melon - 4 lbs
zucchini - 2 lbs
kale - 1 lb

This was our third harvest this week, with 2 deliveries to Lewis House and one to Mount Calvary food shelf.

Any ideas?

Any ideas what type of spider this is? The photo is not the best but this spider has been guarding the end of the garden where the melons and pumpkins are growing for the past couple weeks. We're giving it credit for the huge watermelon we have that is almost ready for harvesting since it's been doing a great job of keeping the bad bugs away.

New Storage Bin

Another donation from Blue Cross today, a large storage bin to hold our garden tools. Volunteers have been either leaving tools by the garden (some of which were starting to rust) or carrying them from their cars and desks and back each time they worked in the garden. So the storage bin has been a frequently requested item for the garden from our volunteers.

The storage bin will also be a great place to keep bags for harvesting. As at least one volunteer found out the hard way, when you forget to bring a bag to hold the veggies you risk leaving a trail of green beans on your way back into the building.

Garden Expansion for Perennials

We requested an additional 400 square feet for the Giving Garden so that we could plant perennial flowers, veggies, and fruits, and we received an additional 1600 square feet. Thanks to Blue Cross Facilities and their landscaper, our garden size doubled overnight! We are very excited about planning crops for this additional space and hope to get some of the perennials including flowers, herbs, strawberries, raspberries, rhubarb, and asparagus planted early September.

Almost Ready

Watermelon, pumpkin, and muskmelon, almost ready for picking. We may have to taste test one of the melons just to make sure they're ripe.

Potatoes and Carrots

We harvested our first bunch of carrots and a few pounds of potatoes!

Tons of Tomatoes

Well not actually tons but our first big harvest of tomatoes. Added up to another 22 lb harvest today for Lewis House.

22 Pound Harvest

22 lbs of produce delivered to Eagan Lewis House today. Our largest harvest to date. Helped along by our first harvest of cabbage, two heads totaling 9 lbs, and lots of cucumbers.

Can you find the toad?

Click on the photo for a closer look. He is not much bigger than my thumb and has great camoflage. The perfect little garden dweller. When I stepped a little closer he hopped to shelter under a nearby plant. I think we'll call him Waldo.

Ah, Summer in the Garden

Ah, summer in the garden. It was pretty steamy out there. We picked our first zucchini and summer squash, and scads and scads of kale, mustard greens, swiss chard and other greens.

We also picked our first bugs of the non-beneficial variety. I wouldn't want to repeat the bad names some of us called them. Suffice to say, we cast aspersions.

But no major damage so far - and our Master Gardener friends are looking them up and finding suitable organic control methods. We will prevail.