Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

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The June 4 watermelons are ripe!

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The first watermelon from the June 4 planting, and was it good! It was tough to get a photo before it disappeared entirely.

The plants are all right

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We’re looking pretty good after the great storm. I set right one climbing bean in the Three Sisters bed, and tried to straighten up a more-or-less fallen brussell sprout plant; it needs a stake. One of the people I gave tours to had never seen one. She had never seen a Kohlrabi either!

I opened the garden for an hour-plus, and we had several waves of parents and kids come through, some with grandparents in tow.

I gave one grandmother some basil sprigs, which she much appreciated.

In the photo, you can see this baby girl was transfixed with the hot pepper plant. I myself was attracted and tried to draw it last time, today bringing my color pencils. Not up to the real thing of course. Too bad we (speaking for myself and probably the baby) don’t care for the taste of hot peppers!

Crowded garden

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I opened the garden this afternoon for about an hour.

First I gave a tour to my neighbor and her daughter, who were walking their large but sweet dog.

Then I went and invited the people at the playground to come see the garden. They didn’t come for a while so I sat and tried to draw the Thai Dragon peppers, but I need a color pencil to fill in! So many — perhaps we should give a few away!

Then all these families came, a number of grandmothers/mothers and children, and at one point there must have been 10 children and almost as many adults roaming the garden!

I carried on lots of conversations, telling the kids how flowers turned to fruits, etc. The eggplant! I explained the Three Sisters bed.  I talked about the squash borers and the hornworms. I showed our new plantings — the spinach seedlings were showing just a little green! I untied the cauliflower to show them, and pointed out the mini cabbages.

One boy had a few cherry tomatoes. One little girl wanted a glass of water so I poured same with the hose, and then sprayed her and her brother and her mother and her grandmother, a retired California school principal in the very town my wife’s brother lives (Richmond)!

The little girl and the boy liked the spray, mother too (it was hot). OK, I didn’t really spray the grandmother.

One boy was quite impressed with all our basil.

Tomatoes Taking Over

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The Beefmaster tomato plant is living up to its reputation and producing many extremely large tomatoes.  This is the largest- maybe not full-sized yet!