Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

Elisabeth

Radishes split from the rain

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I opened the garden at 5:50 last evening and soon left to go to collect produce donations at the farmers’ market.

In just my 20 minutes, several intrigued people came by, the adults usually more interested than the children.

When I returned at 15 before 7, Lisa and Bailey and daughter were there. We tried some of the radishes: The regular ones split from the rain like cherry tomatoes, but were good. Of the big ones, one was OK, but the biggest one was riddled with wire worms.

Tuesday when I was there for a moment in time, a man liked our garden but then didn’t think the snow fence was so attractive, but I said well, it was recycled and was practical.

Dick today at Johnnies told me that one day this week when he was there, an older woman, an experienced gardener, informed him the collards were ready and should be harvested now, lest they get old and tough.

 

Alone in the community garden

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Only in the most jocular way, I’m starting to question the dispatches of Oakes, who reports frequently on all the visitors he entertains in the garden.

I came by yesterday in the morning — I often glance in on my walks with infant Joe and dog Emma, to admire all "my" handiwork — and ended up staying for an hour, putting out doggie water and pulling out weeds, though I was surprised by how few there were, relative to the real estate.

Even though both the playground and the school playground were packed, not only with kids but with parents (an end-of-year thing, maybe?), I had not one visitor! Either he’s cooking the books, or he’s far more attractive than I am to those in the area as a potential host and guide. Yes, that must be it.

It’s a good thing I did get over there to do some work, because family responsibilities kept me from keeping my early evening plan to meet up for the regular midweek session. When I drove by on the way home to feed Joe, I saw only Lisa toiling away, though I understand others were there for portions of the late afternoon and evening.

“Pick those collards now,” she scolded (gently).

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While I was at the garden this morning, doing surgery on the soaker hose (2X more holes now), a handsome, boxy 5-ft-5 grandmother, maybe in her early 70s, came over with her 2-year-old grandkid (or was it great-grandkid?) to admire the garden.

We connected quickly. She pointed around the place, calling off all the veggies she had growing in her own garden. Then, hand out level with her shoulder, she said in a thick eastern European accent: “My tomatoes are much taller; they’re cherries; and they produce lots.” Then she smiled.

I thought, "This lady knows tomatoes," and told her that some of mine at home were still only 4 to 5 inches high.

Then the gentle, between-friends scold began. 

“Why haven’t you picked those yet?” she said, pointing to the collard greens. “Another week and those leaves will be hard. You don’t want that."

"You’ve got to pick them now," she said. "Boil them first, then fry them with a little olive oil. They will taste very good.”

“But do it now,” she repeated, poking the air before me with her finger. “Don’t let them get hard.”

I promised I’d pass her admonitions on to the crew tomorrow evening, when we get together for our mid-week shift.

Watermelon radishes and wire worms

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Huge radishToday we harvested our largest radish, a Watermelon Radish, almost as big as a turnip, a handsome pink color with white, only the radish was burrowed into by the wire worm, all deformed, and in fact one of them appeared so as to have his photograph taken!

Wire wormWe learned that the wire worm is particularly prevelant when turf is converted to garden.  We hope it will not also burrow into our carrots and beets and potatoes!  Continued cultivation in the fall is one solution so that the worms will be noticed by their predators, such as, an article suggests, your chickens!