Robbins Farm Garden is a cooperative community garden project at Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, MA. Since 2010, we’ve grown vegetables organically as a group, created an educational resource in the community and continued the agricultural tradition of the farm at the park. We garden Saturday mornings April – November and Tuesday or Wednesday evenings June – September. The project is run through Arlington’s Recreation Department.
First Tomato of 2026
A ripe Sun Gold greeted us on the 4th of July this year.
Collards of our Dreams
Success with starting kale indoors (see last year’s post) inspired us to follow suit with collards, with similarly spectacular results. They were on the same schedule as the kale: seeded on April 5 and planted out on May 3.
The photo above was taken on May 23, 2026; the photo below was taken on May 24, 2025. Not only do we have our most uniformly-robust collard plants, we are harvesting from them a full two months earlier than last year. The results are well worth the extra seedling work in the spring!
Seedling Season in full swing
Say hello to some colorful beet seedlings ready to go in the ground!
The early-season seedlings we started indoors in early March have all found their way into the garden as of this weekend. That includes: broccoli, sprouting broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, fava beans, leeks, lettuce, onions, shallots, and spinach. In the case of the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower, the early start gives us time for two crops each season.
Many of our mid-season seedlings were also started indoors. Our beets, celery, collards, edible flowers, kales (curly and dinosaur), and kohlrabi were started indoors in early April for transplanting into the garden in early May. We once started these crops outdoors, but the indoor start gives us stronger and more uniformly-stellar plants.
And the late-season seedlings are well on their way. We’ve begun hardening off the peppers, the tomatoes and eggplants are following close behind, and the basil, ground cherries, okra, papalo, sweet potatoes, and tomatillos will be ready to make their garden debut in coming weeks. The garden is definitely taking shape.
Opening Day 2026
We had a lovely day to start the 2026 season at the garden. Planting included our usual peas, radishes, and fava bean seedlings. The first of the beds to be planted were prepared with a mix of lime, fertilizer (Garden Tone or Tomato Tone) and manure based on the soil testing from last fall. Our harvest was primarily parsnips, small ones we left in the ground last fall. Thanks to everyone who could attend!
First Seedlings are Up!
We gathered around the seedling table last Sunday to plant our first seeds of the season. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflowers, fava beans, leeks, lettuces, onions, shallots, and spinach are now on their way to sprouting and growing.
First to break ground were the leeks (circled in red below), lettuce, and sprouting broccoli.
Seed Viability Testing 2026
We’ve entered our second year of seed viability testing. Most of this year’s testing is of seed we saved from the 2024 or 2025 seasons; some was packaged seed from previous years that we’re curious about, and one is an experiment with store-bought seed.
The testing process is the same as last year, though the setup is on a table in my office rather than in the seedling setup in my basement. A testing nest was used, with the damp rolled paper towels inside a clear plastic bag, tucked in a rectangular plastic flat on a heating pad. A temperature probe in one of the rolls connects to a controller box, turning the heating pad on below 20 degrees C (68 degrees F) and off above 25 degrees C (77 degrees F).
Everything is based on The Seed Garden book by Seed Savers Exchange. The book details the testing procedure and includes a reference table for home testing of different seeds. I check the seeds by unrolling the paper towels every other day and count how many have sprouted. (Most rolls have 10 seeds, making the percentages simple. The larger seeds have only 5.)
The testing ended when the percentage stabilized and the seeds expressed both root and seed leaves. Ten of the thirteen tests were at 100% or 80%; only one was below 50%. The details of this year’s viability results are included below.
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