Before and After

BEFORE

AFTER

Getting Started

Ever wondered how you could get started with your own Community Giving Garden? Well, look no further and check out the new "Tips for Getting Started" fact sheet. We hope you enjoy!

Radishes!

The radishes are almost ready to pick, and we can hardly wait!  Okay, we didn't wait. 

Try this tasty recipe (courtesy of Food Network) for roasted radishes and carrots:

1 bunch small to medium radishes, about 12

12 baby carrots
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon dried thyme
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Lemon half

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Place the radishes and carrots on a baking sheet and toss with the olive oil, thyme, salt, and pepper. Roast until tender yet firm in the center, about 20 minutes. Squeeze with a little lemon juice and serve.

Our strawberry patch has produced scads of berries for delivery this spring!  We've alternated deliveries between Lewis House and Eagan Resource Center for the past few weeks.  Thanks, Strawberry Team!

Though admittedly less enjoyable than picking strawberries, we do have some fans of rock picking.  A geologist might find our garden interesting and certainly productive.

Nothing better than a salad with spring onions and strawberries!  Use fresh spinach or your favorite lettuce, chopped green onions, fresh strawberries, add walnuts if you like, and toss with your favorite light vinaigrette.

New Fence

We've upgraded from our original bent up chicken wire fence to a nice new fence which will be easier to put up and take down each year for tilling.

Cory Benson from Cortland Construction donated his time and expertise to construct our new fence with the help of  Lynn one of our garden steering committee volunteers.

Thanks to Cory and Lynn we have a great looking new fence just in time for planting to help keep the bunnies at bay!

Last Harvest of the Season

We dug, cut, picked and gathered the last crops for harvest during our Fall Garden Clean Up event last week.

Twenty pounds of produce including beets, kohlrabi, carrots, kale, Swiss chard, parsley, onions, bok choy and cabbage were delivered to Eagan Resource Center.

And That's a Wrap

The garden is tucked in tight and ready for the winter that lays ahead. We close out the season with a grand total of 1049.75 pounds of produce. Our biggest year thus far! We have had a successful season both inside and out. On the outside, the garden has florished. Inside, our volunteers have been hard at work establishing a formal steering committee. We will be working like a well oiled machine over the cold months laying out the 2012 garden plan and events. We look forward to another great year filled with sunny days and 100+ pound deliveries!

Harvest's Past
2008 -  More than 500 pounds of fresh produce were delivered to Lewis House in our inagural growing season. At times the harvests were so plentiful that excess produce was also shared with a local food shelf.
2009 - We hit a hiccup and lost our melons, pumpkins, squash and cucumbers to Powdery Mildew. We ended the growing season with less then 500 pounds of fresh produce.
2010 - We recovered from last season and donated 1000 pounds of fresh produce to Lewis House and the local food shelf.
2011 - Japanese Beetles were out in full force. Thanks to a couple of bug smashing boys, we were able to overcome the infestation. We conitnued our produce donations to Lewis House and the local food shelf.