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Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Harvest Totals - May 23 - July 31. 2011

One day's lettuce harvest!
(Note: I started this post almost three weeks ago and then life took over! Rather than re-write it, just know that it's not entirely up to date...)

We've been harvesting from the garden for ten weeks. The lettuce, peas and broccoli are finished for now. The beets, onions, zucchini, tomatoes and potatoes are just beginning. We started seeds for our fall/winter crops a few weeks ago and have begun transplanting them in the ground.  We weigh and tally all the harvests before distribution. This food is shared amongst volunteers and other contributors, the Monroe Food bank, Monroe's Senior Nutrition Program (bi-weekly lunches at the Legion Hall), Harrisburg Gleaners and Linn/Benton Food Share. Here are harvest totals, as of July 31.

Beets: 21 bunches
Broccoli: 26 pounds
Kale: 127 bunches
Lettuce: 551 heads (a great year for lettuce!!)
Green onion bunches: 23
Peas: 20 pounds
Spinach: 25 bunches

After checking with our local market that sells organic food, we tallied up how much this produce would cost if people were buying it for themselves. The total came to a little more than $2,500.

Gallery of Givers

We've got a really wonderful core group of volunteers showing up once or twice a week now. One day we had three mother/daughter pairs. And another day we had four young people ages 7 to 11. My mom, Judy has been visiting for two weeks and sister, Sue and nephew, Miles, joined in for an afternoon, which was really fun. Here are a sampling of smiling faces, happy helpers and a view of the garden's progress.

Miles plants broccoli
Sue displays an early onion harvest proudly.

Kaitlynn and Kyra with a bucket of potatoes freshly harvested
Christine (Ms Bug) trims tomatoes
Monroe Garden - celery in sleeves on left, lettuce-starts in middle, potatoes on right
That's an 8-pound cabbage!
Judy-mom, Chris and Jennifer - mulching with grass clippings
Kaitlynn watering the lettuce and Brussels Sprouts
Mark building a new compost bin
Niko - our youngest helper, takes a turn at watering.

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