Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

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What a Difference Full Sun makes!

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Like most home gardens in Arlington, the plot we gardened at 13 Addison Street for several years was mostly full sun. (There were no apologies for the soil, which couldn’t have been better.) Regardless, it seemed that the Robbins Farm garden was outperforming the 13 Addison Street garden in number of days to harvest.
 
So I looked for veggies in both gardens that were: 1) easy to determine when the first harvest occurred, 2) grown from seed sown outdoors at the same time in the season and 3) that were the same varieties from the same seed source.

Three veggies fit the criteria. And the results are significant, even if you factor in the more regular watering the Robbins Farm garden enjoys. I can’t wait to see how much faster the pole beans grow!

Veggie School meets again

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Altogether, close to 90 exuberant, inquisitive, and pretty well-behaved students attended one of three 25-minute classes this morning at the Veggie School in Robbins Farm Garden.

We talked about different veggies’ origins, the different parts the plant we eat with different vegetables, what kinds of bugs we like and don’t like and why, and what were our favorite and least favorite veggies.

Veggie Schhol set up

Tops in students’ favorites were tomatoes and carrots, with onions coming in third. Least liked in general were beets and eggplant, though most everyone agreed that the deep-purple eggplants were among the most beautiful vegetables in the garden.

The few students repeating from last week marveled at how some of the garden’s plants had grown, like the three squashes (pattipan, crookneck and zucchini), the cucumbers, and especially the sunflowers, reaching now to almost 9 feet tall.

Wednesday night harvesting

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Last night’s midweek gathering was sparse, damp, and sprinkled upon, but it was fun nevertheless — and because only Lisa, Alan, and I were able to make it, we got relatively large parcels of produce to bring home.

I got a big cache of snow peas and took the two small zucchinis, leaving a larger one each for Alan and Lisa. I also took some arugula (a new delight for me, which I owe to Elisabeth’s passion for it) and a head of lettuce.

I also got a nice handful of beans, which I originally wanted to call "green beans," but we planted yellow (aka wax) and purple beans, too. The beans were long and shiny, and the bushes were well stocked, in contrast to the bushes I’m growing at home. I was quite jealous.

July 14 2010 harvest

Watch out for the little spines

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I opened the garden for a couple of hours Tuesday.

Again, we had several Asian-Americans coming to visit, including one a couple who had just arrived from Beijing! The man practiced his English on me. They have different gardening customs, which I can’t quite repeat. For instance they do not plant cabbages in the spring.

A little later, after Michael had come by with baby Joe, an Indian family visited — a dad and three kids who were very enthusiastic. They asked about several of the crops, including which ones were being grown for what was underground, and the elder girl (9 or 10, maybe?) warned that when we harvest the zucchini, we should be wary of the little spines that could hurt.

Their dad liked our garden and wanted to be in touch with us. He said he is psyched that we are adding to the town’s culture, which he, himself, was also doing: He told us about a townwide Scrabble tournament at the library on Wednesday. Unfortunately for us, he said it was closed to those who had graduated high school. 
 

[Michael P. contributed to Oakes’ report.]