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 evenings June – September. The project is run through Arlington’s Recreation Department.
Our first warm Saturday of the season
Though it’s the middle of May, today felt like summer at the garden. We enjoyed our first harvests of arugula and radishes, which we seeded in the soil last month. Next week, we’re expecting to harvest our first lettuce and spinach, which we started indoors and transplanted as seedlings.
Our new metal pea & pole bean trellis has been fitted out with twine, and looks quite fine! There are seedlings sprouting all over the garden and our warm weather seedlings are beginning their hardening off period before being planted in the soil.
Opening Day Rock Stars
Opening day was brisk and breezy at the garden. Much to our surprise, we discovered that the young lettuce we left in little plastic hoop houses survived the winter. The other major discovery was a huge rock about a foot below the surface of one of the garden beds.
The rock was almost as large as the Philosopher’s Stone we unearthed with great labor many years ago and left in the corner of the garden until the fence was replaced. Yet once the rock stars set to work, there was no doubt that the rock would be moved. It was an exhausting process, but the team displayed remarkable skill and ingenuity. Well done!
Get Ready for Opening Day – April 2, 2022
Mark your calendars with a big squash blossom star for Opening Day at the Garden on April 2nd from 9AM to Noon.
Weather permitting, we’ll be digging garden beds, planting early crops, checking the wintered-over crops, and conducting spring clean-up. After that, we’ll be gardening every Saturday morning for the rest of the season.
Come join the fun!
2022 virtual Seed Selection Meeting – January 22
Our annual seed selection meeting will be held on Saturday, January 22 from 9:30am to 11:30am. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, the meeting will be held virtually. Please contact us to get info to join the meeting.
Everyone interested in the crops and varieties we plan to grow at Robbins Farm Garden this season is welcome. Prospective new members of the garden group are especially encouraged to attend and join in the discussion. Collect your seed catalogs and your great expectations for the upcoming gardening season!
2021 Notes to the Future (end of season notes)
2021 was a season of new beginnings, starting with brand new layouts for the garden and beds this spring. Aside from our usual gardening tasks, we dug lots of new garden ground, removed lots of rocks, transported the compost across the garden, built a stunning stone drywell and center area edge wall, and a metal scaffold for the tomatoes.
The weather was relatively dry in spring, followed by a summer of regular rain and reliable warmth until late in the season. Hurricane Fred mixed things up in August, washing playground mulch and stone dust into – and straight through – the garden. Warm wet weather led to a bumper crop of garden pest insects.
2021 was also the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the 2020 lockdown, we felt especially fortunate to welcome three new gardeners to the crew. We documented our progress on accessibility improvements, and returned to hosting visitors on Field Day.
2021 Alliums (end of season notes)
Garlic (private stock): did well, despite having some of them in path due to garden bed rearrangement.
Leeks (Tadorna HM): new variety good, but later than in previous years.
Onions from seed (New York Early HM, Rossa di Milano HM, Walla Walla R): Sets not great growing in squash beds, switch them back to tomato bed. Seeded varieties started well, but lost many soon after transplant (cold stress?) and most failed to reach full size.
Onion sets (yellow & white Agway): grew in perimeter squash beds so were shaded out and didn’t do well, grow around tomato bed again next year.
Scallions (Parade B): did reasonably well in less than ideal spot, did need some infill seeding, but lasted the season.
Shallots (Conservor HM): did well, but smaller than usual, similar to onions.
Walking Onions (private stock): replanted from previous location in spring, hit by flooding in new location near entrance.
