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Our Biggest Harvest Yet!

Every Monday I try and get to the community garden to harvest what I can for the food bank. We have set aside an area about 60' long and 12' wide to grow food for the needy. I had the grade three class that comes to learn in the garden plant most of the crops last May. I had never planted cabbage from seed before so I let the children plant them and we learned together.


We planted two short rows and this is what we harvested yesterday. Don't they look pretty? Cabbage is slow to get going but when it starts to form a head you know its working. I was worried about cabbage month larvae being a problem but they just seemed to eat the outer leaves. Hardly a mark on the cabbage when harvested and that's a good thing. Be sure to make sure the heads are firm before harvesting.


I had to remove some of the outer leaves just like they do in the grocery stores. I gave the heads a quick rinse and set them to dry.


In May, the children had planted a Three Sisters Garden. For information on how to grow a garden like this click here. The Three Sisters Garden is planted with corn, beans and squash. Look how long the beans are! It was time to harvest them as well. We picked the beans the day before dropping them off at the food bank so they would be fresh.


We also harvest 16 pounds of potatoes from a couple of short rows. I brought them home and gave them a scrub and let them dry before bagging them in two pound bags. When bagging them I try to think of what I would buy at the grocery store.


In total this week we harvested 16 pounds of potatoes, 11 pounds of apples, 3 pounds of yellow beans, 3 pounds of green beans and 9 pounds of green cabbage. Thanks to Bonnie Pearce and family for letting us glean their apple tree. With the start of school next week, the apples will go a long way towards school lunches. Thanks to volunteer Ian Dick who helped me harvest this week. I wish the children could be here to harvest. In September I hope to have them harvest the squash that was planted in the Three Sisters Garden. They will love doing that school garden lesson!

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