It's been a while since our last teaching garden update, here are a few exciting things that are happening in the garden since we last updated you.
Today, we sent out another large donation of produce to Chili's on Wheels! We donated about 250 pounds of produce this week including...
75 pounds of Cucumbers (!!)
45 pounds of Zucchini
7 pounds of Eggplant
28 pounds of Kale
30 pounds of Carrots
36 pounds of Collard greens
30 pounds of Swiss Chard
and 15 pounds of beets (not pictured). We are happy to continue to provide delicious produce to organizations and people who need it!
In other news, our Paw Paw tree has produced its first fruits! Hopefully these stick around to ripen up and are not eaten up by critters before they will be harvested in late August.
We have been very busy maintaining the garden this season. In seasons past, we usually have help from hundreds of volunteers who come out to do some garden work with their offices/ organizations. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of Covid-19 we have not been able to work with these volunteers this year which means all of the weeding, mulching, harvesting, and other important work they help us with has fallen on our limited staff members. Last week, we received a big shipment of mulch (about 30 cubic yards) that we will use to cover our paths to help stop/slow down the weeds that we need to manage.
Here is just a taste of the work our volunteers usually help us with that we are working hard
(slowly but surely) to complete!
Last, but certainly not least, this year in addition to not being able to work with our usual school groups we have missed working with our older adult groups. Fortunately, we have been able to keep some contact with those groups by donating plants to individuals who usually come to visit us in person. We donated some Chive plants to members of SMART university and some of them sent us some updates on their plants!
Their plants look great! We are so excited to be able to provide people with a touch of nature and some herbs they can use while cooking. We hope to receive more photos of plants we have donated to individuals who may be quarantined or home bound during this time.
Stay tuned for more garden updates coming soon! (hint: our next update will hopefully include one of our favorite summer fruits...)