By Isabella Falsetti
A big part of gardening is having a good imagination and considering what plants will become, not just what they look like right now. Even though it’s the height of summer, it’s time to start thinking about fall and winter crops, like green onions and purple broccoli.
These past couple weeks at the garden have consisted of lots of planting, weeding, and harvesting.
At our June 28 work party, we prepped beds for new crops and harvested lettuce, chard, berries, and beets! We also turned the compost with donated coffee grounds.
At our first work party of July, we did lots of weeding and harvesting.
Alex encouraged us to reconsider how we think of “weeds.” Just because they may not be productive in a garden setting doesn’t mean they’re inherently bad. Many are still edible or have medicinal purposes — they just aren’t cultivated like other crops. Some, however, outcompete garden plants and hinder their growth, which means less produce for the food hub and gardeners.
These are some of the species we weeded, on a scale from most to least intrusive: crabgrass, morning glory, thistles, dock, borage, and wild arugula. Below is a particularly large borage plant uprooted by one of our gardeners.
Gardeners also set up homemade bean poles constructed from bamboo reeds and twine.
We had another plentiful harvest this week, with radicchio, komatsuna, green onions, garlic chives, stem lettuce, red orachi, and chives.
Our next work party is this Sunday, July 9. Sign up here! Hope to see you there :)
