Fruits of our labor, Fruits of the City

100 pounds of vegetables split between the Food Shelf and Lewis House deliveries yesterday. Granted, those are some heavy cucumbers, but Green beans! Okra! Chard!

And as we get into the harvest season when everybody has overflowing gardens and trees full of fruit - Joan posted this a year ago (Sharing the Harvest), but it bears repeating:

Too many beans, tomatoes, or zucchini? Donate to a local shelter or food shelf. Apples, plums, or cherries just falling to the ground and rotting in your yard? Join the Fruits of the City - Fruit Gleaning project. The best part about the Fruit Gleaning project is that they coordinate volunteers to harvest the fruit and get the fruit to those in need. So do you have a tree that needs picking? Sign up a tree Would you like to volunteer as a gleaner? Sign yourself up

The Okra is Ready

Our first harvest of okra was included in the second delivery of the week.  Susan's mom would be proud of us, our okra didn't get too big although a few were probably a little bigger than what she recommended.

Why We Garden

From volunteer Mary Jo: I've enjoyed working in the garden for multiple reasons. Volunteering is one way I work to keep my life in balance and I think the on-site garden is a wonderful project with so many benefits for the volunteers as well as the community. Teaming up with my friend Alice has given us a chance to keep in touch since we no longer work in the same department (or the same building), and scheduling weekly time at the garden is also helping me increase my activity level this summer. It has also been quite a challenge - keeping up with the weeds this year has been difficult, but I'm determined to keep trying!

July 15 Delivery

Delivered 35 pounds of produce to the food shelf today.






From the delivery volunteer:

I just delivered to the Eagan Resource Center and they were so pleased with the donation of 35 pounds of fresh produce from the garden! In the summer months there is always a drop in dry good donations so the fresh produce helps to off set the drop. Plus the fresh produce is so much healthier. Please thank all the volunteers for all the work that they do. They are making a difference in the lives of many.





Worth the work.

Red Yellow Green

We strolled out to the garden after a weekend of glorious weather and found that the crops had soaked up the sun and rain and grown like mad!

We'll be delivering squash, greens, beets and tomatoes this week!







And my favorite! Raspberries!

Beautiful Broccoli . . .

Beautiful Broccoli

Cheery Chard

Corn Knee High by the Fourth of July

Lots of Leafy Greens

As you can see our food shelf and Lewis House deliveries are still primarily spinach, lettuces, kale, and herbs.

Strawberries are all done but the raspberries should be ready for picking some time next week.  And the rest of the crops continue to grow nicely.