|
Join us for the 3rd Annual Harvest Fest, Saturday, October 14th (10-2), at St. Nicholas, 350 US Route 1, Scarborough. Come see the garden, pick up some handmade crafts, get treats from the bake sale table, and enjoy a bratwurst from the grill or some cider. Take home fall mums and native Maine produce. Raffles, crafts, games, live music, and more!
July Total so far: 42 1/2 pounds
WEDNESDAY: 7/19/17 Radishes: 1 lb Beets: 2 lbs Garlic Scapes: 1/2 pound (6 oz) TUESDAY: 7/18/17 Parsley: 2 lbs Radishes: 3 oz Peas: 1 lb 2 oz Beets: 4 1/2 lbs Sw Chard: 3 3/4 lb Lettuce: 1 lb Kale: 3 lbs Chives: 1 lb WEEK SEVEN (July 11 & 13)
WEEK SIX (July 4th) - no harvest
JUNE TOTAL: 48 pounds WEEK FIVE (June 27 & 29)
WEEK FOUR (June 20 & 21)
WEEK THREE (June 13 & 15)
MAY TOTAL: 4.5 pounds WEEKS ONE & TWO (May 21 & 29)
Happiness is time spent in the garden, and we're especially happy to welcome volunteers from the Scarborough Garden Club who are helping us harvest every week. Thank you! (Pictured here are Penny & Pat, with 20 pounds of garden bounty!) 
And so starts the 2017 planting season! Gardeners from St.Nick's put in the first of our cold crops: green lettuce. About 100 romaine and green lettuce seedlings were planted, and a dozen or so parsley plants, too. Also lots of marigolds to keep smaller garden pests like mice and voles away and cosmos to attract pollinators.  Check out these two annual plant sales! They are sponsored by friends of our garden! We get lots of help and good advice from the Scarborough Garden Club and we are a recipient of "Seed Grants" from the Master Gardeners. We hope you'll support them, because they've been supporting us since we planted our first crops. May 20 at the Barron Center - Cumberland County Master Gardeners June 3 at the Hunnewell House - Scarborough Garden Club
Our friends at Keller Williams volunteered for the garden as part of their annual "RED Days". We are glad Keller Williams' Cash Wiseman called Project GRACE to ask how they could help their neighbors on May 11th, a day of giving back nationwide for the realty group. To help us get the garden ready for growing season, they moved a mountain of lovely organic compost from Jordan's Farm, and laid the pathways, too. THANK YOU! From this....  To this... in about 2 hours! Wow!  Project GRACE has been applying for grants for the garden, and we're very pleased to be awarded a "Seed Grant" from the Cumberland County Master Gardeners. It's one of several that help us put the green into our garden efforts.Thank you!
We hope you'll stop by ACE Hardware at Oak Hill on Wednesday, April 26th (4pm-7pm) for the 5th annual garden party! We're sharing a table with the Scarborough Garden Club and the Cumberland County Master Gardeners. Stop by for soil test kits and some planting advice, too! Click here for more info, coupons.  The snow's barely melted, but we're planning our 2017 growing season! First task on the list is to roto-till the leaves and compost added last fall as we put the garden to bed. Then we'll be ready for our first work day to spread compost, lay paths, and plot our planting plan. Save the Date: Thursday, May 11th 2pm Our friends at Keller-Williams will be volunteering for the garden as part of their annual "RED Days". Keller-Williams' Cash Wiseman called Project GRACE to ask how they could help their neighbors on May 11th, a day of giving back nationwide for the realty group, and we were happy to respond with an invitation to have them help us get the garden ready for season!
Maine Harvest for Hunger is a program of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension that encourages gardeners to provide fresh fruits and vegetables to hungry people in Maine. The Scarborough Community Garden weighs our harvests each week and reports the totals to Maine Harvest to Hunger. Did you know, nearly 1 in every 4 Maine children, are food insecure. To learn more about Harvest for Hunger, click here!
Recently Overheard at the Pantry: "I haven't had these in such a long time, they are so expensive." (talking about just-picked fresh green beans)
"Wow, that all looks really nice. It's great for someone like me - I'm a vegetarian." "Thank you, gardeners, you keep on growing. It's wonderful what you are doing. I'm diabetic, and I'm trying to eat right." "The kids really love these." (talking about cucumbers) "Having a recipe is really helpful. I haven't tried that before." (talking about kale) "This must be really fresh; it still has some dirt on it!" (talking about beets just pulled from the garden) OCTOBER TOTAL: 22 pounds WEEK TWENTY-TWO: October 20
WEEK TWENTY-ONE: October 11 & 13 no harvest WEEK TWENTY: October 4 & 6
Thank you, Scarborough Cub Scout Pack 47, Bear Dens 1 & 2! We are so glad you could come to Harvest Fest at St. Nick's and help us harvest kale and swiss chard, sample treats and soups, and plant herb pots for the patrons of the Scarborough Food Pantry. Well done, kids. Thank you!  SEPTEMBER TOTAL: 121 pounds AUGUST TOTAL: 113 1/4 pounds WEEK EIGHTEEN: September 20 & 22
WEEK SEVENTEEN: September 15
WEEK SIXTEEN: September 6 & 8, 2016
WEEK FIFTEEN: August 30 & September 1, 2016
WEEK FOURTEEN: August 25, 2016
WEEK THIRTEEN: August 16 & 18, 2016
WEEK TWELVE: August 9 & 11, 2016
WEEK ELEVEN: August 2, 2016
JULY TOTAL: 101 POUNDS WEEK TEN July 26 & 28, 2016
WEEK NINE: July 19 & 21, 2016
WEEK EIGHT: July 14, 2016
WEEK SEVEN: July 7, 2016
Counting the pounds at each harvest is fun, but we'd rather pick the squashes and zucchinis when they are small - they just taste better that way.
 This is our second season of growing for the community, and we're pleased to report that thanks to an abundance of great compost, helping hands, and an earlier start, we were able to harvest before Memorial Day, a full month earlier than last season.
We've had a few ups and downs along the way: we had just spread about six yards of locally made 'surf'n'turf" compost, laid down some paths, and planted our early cold crops of spinach, kale, and peas...then oh, no! Snow! A few weeks later, we were celebrating the awesomeness of our spinach and lettuce harvests. What do they say about pride? Just as we were anticipating a second crop of lettuce, a wiley invader snuck in and ate it all up. All of it. Every. Single. Head. But on the whole things have been good in the garden. There are more herbs, which do a lot to wake up a meal that starts from a box or can. We've added new crops like bok choy, leeks, and garlic - the scapes are fantastically artful as well as tasty. It's now mid-July, and we're at week 9 with a dozen or so harvest days. Cold crops like spinach are giving way to summer treats like basil, peppers, and just-picked-can't-getter-better-than-that green beans. There is joy, too. Lots of joy. |
Categories
All
News Archive
September 2017
Scarborough Community Garden at St. Nick's |
RSS Feed