Progress

We have harvested all our beets and carrots and a second round has been seeded.

Onions

Baby Watermelon!

Straw mulch has been added to our tomatoes, peppers and eggplants to improve soil moisture retention and inhibit weeds.

First Harvest 2015

We harvested our first vegetables this week - radishes and spinach. Some of the radishes had been attacked by insects. Interestingly, these were in the rows nearest the trees. Our spinach is beginning to bolt so we pulled out the entire plants. We'll seed carrots in these rows next.

Spinach is starting to bolt

In the Garden 2015

In the LRC Food Banks' Garden for 2015, we have:

Beans
Swiss chard
Lettuce
Spinach
Watermelon
Eggplant
Tomato
Peppers
Beets
Radishes
Carrots
Onion
Cucumber
Raspberry

Soil Amendment Workshop - May 1, 2015

The Kinsmen Open Community Garden is hosting a FREE soil amendment workshop on Friday, May 1, 2015.

Spring 2015

We have our garden plan established and some early seeds in the ground. We're hoping to try a couple new crops - watermelon, onion....maybe even sweet potato!

Final total

This year we donated 3175 lbs of produce to the Interfaith Food Bank. This was valued at $7937.50.

In the five years we have been growing, we have donated over 16000 lbs of fresh produce with a value of $35,600.

Thank you to all our volunteers!

September 16 Harvest

Post frost - we're still harvesting!

We have now reached the grand total of 2300.5 lbs of produced delivered (valued at $5751.25).

Eggplants

September 16, 2014 Harvest

Harvest Update

Last weeks deliveries (lbs)

Beets	62.5
Beets	10
Eggplant	3.5
Carrots	3
Beans	1
Zucchini	1
Peppers	7
Lettuce	21.5
Tomatoes	1.5
Swiss chard	4.5

Total = 266 lbs ($665)

Fried Purslane !

One of the most prolific weeds in our garden is Purslane (Portulaca oleracea). It propagates readily and a good amount of our weeding effort is dedicated to Purslane.

But maybe we need to look at purslane differently? Check out this blog posting by Ashley from Lethbridge on Fried Purslane.
https://blog.etsy.com/en/2010/edible-weeds-fried-purslane-with-off-the-hooks/

Ashley's recipe

Fried Purslane
Serves 2

2 cups (500 ml) fresh purslane leaves (and stems, if young), washed
2 Tbsp (30ml) butter or olive oil
1/4 cup (50ml) dry white wine
2 Tbsp (30ml) freshly squeezed lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Freshly grated parmesan cheese to taste

Bring water to a boil, add purslane, reduce heat and simmer for 3-5 min. Drain.

Melt butter or oil in a heavy skillet. Add blanched purslane, wine, and lemon juice — cook until liquid reduces slightly. Season with salt and freshly ground pepper, grate fresh parmesan cheese on each serving.

Serve hot and enjoy!


And here's a recipe for Purslane Salad from Amy Chaplin.

Late spring purslane salad with flax chive dressing

5 baby turnips, cut in ¼’s
5 radishes, cut in ¼’s
5 baby carrots, cut in half lengthways
10 sugar snap peas, trimmed
2 large handfuls purslane

Dressing
2 tablespoons flax oil
Juice of half a lemon
½ teaspoon tamari or shoyu, or more to taste
Black pepper
6 chives chopped

Place turnips and radishes in the basket of a steamer and steam 2 minutes. Add sugar snaps and steam 1 minute more. Remove from heat and spread out on a platter to cool.

http://www.coconutandquinoa.com/2010/06/12/purslane-salad-with-flax-chive-dressing/

Harvest on July 14

On July 14, we harvested:

Peppers  2.5 lbs
Lettuce  39.5 lbs
Kale  7 lbs
Swiss chard  16 lbs
Beets  63.5 lbs

This brings our total to date - 150.5 lbs valued at $376.25.