Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

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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.]

Visitors enjoy the progress

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I opened the garden for an hour and a half yesterday afternoon. Though there were dramatic rains in both Lexington and Boston, none here! Even so, the garden looked well watered.

A nice group of Asian-American mothers and children came to visit. They remarked on the eggplants (great purple blossoms), the amaranth, and the tomatoes. Earlier a mother with two daughters enjoyed finding the hidden zucchini. Several people took the cards.

I tried to draw the amaranth and the basil, impossible as usual.

Promise

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The tomato patch is full of promise, from the insanely huge clusters, galaxies, of flowers on the Blondkopfchen to the fully fleshed fruits of a neighbor. The Blondkopfchen, "little blond head", is producing true to its description in the Seed Savers catalog, "enormous yields and never a cracked fruit" (we’ll be happy to see the latter). All that and it is said to bear until frost!