The garden had a fair amount of rain in the past few weeks, making way for some beautiful blossoms and healthy soil. Mint has already begun to spring up in the plots next to the Science building (feel free to snatch a leaf or two for your tea or baked goods!) and flowers are all in bloom around Lawrenceville– from saucer magnolias (below) to forsythias (my personal favorite).
Go out for a walk on your lunch hour or in between classes if you can…trees in bloom are a beautiful, hopeful thing.
What spring flowers will you be eating this season? So far we’ve got seeds for bachelor’s buttons, johnny jump ups and daffodils that we’re hoping to plant around the perimeter of the garden this season. Check out the article below for a brief summary of edible flowers…or wait till the cookbook is out!
The birds were chirping today! The sun was out for more than an hour as well. (First time I got to pirouette on the driveway without needing a jacket in a LONG while.) Welcome spring!
To go along with the changeover of seasons, a box from Johnny’s Seeds was delivered just last week to the lovely Dr. Hyatt. Seeds are in! Check out the graphic below to see how everything is organized.
Excel beauty.
As I learned from Lo and her farm-knowledge, it’s best to organize via Families, Product Ids…and I used a slight cheat-sheet on the side to mentally record how many types of veggies we have. We’re trying to make this year our best one yet–especially in terms of record-keeping–using the excel doc. to note reminders of what we’ve seeded and how it turned out.
By the way…those are your three favorite kale varieties you see on there! Toscano for days!
I also started to seed a few packets from last season: we’re going to be experimenting with some Asian greens this semester while still bringing back a few of our favorites: curly, bibb and summercrisp lettuce, scallions, etc.
In other garden news, Hannah Strong, from our sister garden over at Westminster is now a proud momma– to some beautiful tomato sprouts:
More to come soon: keep on the lookout! While you’re waiting, send in any recipes you have for our cookbook–and don’t forget to ‘spring’ your clocks forward an hour tonight.
We’ve missed you! I hope you all have been enjoying a productive winter and had a wonderful start to the New Year. The garden has been quiet and the soil resting, although a few lone carrots and radishes remain if you want to explore.
Indoors we’ve been busy welcoming new community members at Awareness Day, cleaning out space to start flats in the greenhouse and just sent out our seed order this Thursday. We’re excited to try our hand with a few new plants– spaghetti squash, hot HOT peppers, marble onions, green beans, potatoes and fresh cut flowers…not to mention your already-loved favorites.
We also now have two lovely co-managers (Steve and Katie) who are learning the ropes and working on expanding our community in a few exciting directions. We’ll hold a meeting in the near future to introduce our plans for the spring–be on the lookout for an email.
In the meantime, we’re asking the community to send in any recipes, photos or poems you’ve got about our beloved Green Acres! For our senior Sustainability capstone, Westminster Garden Manager Hannah Strong and I are working together—under the advisement of Dr. Hyatt—to create a Green Acres cookbook! I’m so excited.
Paying tribute to the garden and the lessons we’ve learned from it, we want the cookbook to encompass the wide collection of gardening techniques, recipes and memories we’ve created—so they can be shared with past, present and future Green Acres members. Not to mention it’s a lovely way to commemorate the garden and community you’ve helped create.
So…we need your help! If you have any photos (of produce or meals created), and/or recipes that you are willing to share, please send them over to canosej@rider.edu! We’re working on collating the recipes now and are going to finalize the list in the next few weeks, so please send in what you have as soon as possible.
If you’ve got any nifty title ideas as well, feel free to throw those in…we’ve got lots of ideas simmering on the stove at the moment and would love to add more!
“It’s a sad day for the kale at green acres”
Credit: Jess Marino, capturing Steve Schwartz working in the garden today.
We’ve now pulled almost all the kale…but don’t worry! That just means we have that much more to plant. We’re assembling the list now for spring and summer seeds so if you’ve got any preferences or veggies you’re hearkening for (loved last season or want to experiment with), leave a note in the comment section below! I’ll post a list soon of what we’re drafting, so keep a look out!
Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to…start preparing for next year?
Not so much…but we can never be too early! Bookmark this post for holidays, birthdays, you name it.
Debra Greenberg has been kind enough to share a neatlist of gift ideas for garden enthusiasts. Take it away Debra!
Ceramic Pots: Last year I received a set of ceramic pots for spices with a pen so I could write on them what they are. It was a good winter gift because I started an herb garden indoors. There are many choices of herb garden pots online: I saw a planter composed of ceramic shapes that fit together, and another with a bunch of little pots that sit on a longer tray.
Herb Plant/Garden: You could send a rosemary riches tree from FTD (Link) or an herb garden from ProFlowers (Link), for example.
Garden-Kit: You can also send a kit for someone who may enjoy putting it together, furnished by Burpee (Link).
A gift from the New York Botanical Garden Shopperhaps (Link)? You may want to pick out something for yourself if you browse this site!
Thanks, Debra! You made me think of a few things too:
Sunscreen: Sunburn is NOT the new black. Sunscreen should be heralded as pure gold in the middle of the spring/summer afternoon (at least in my mind). Tried and tested varieties for allergic-to-everything gals like me who need the highest SPF value possible: Trader Joe’s SPF 30, Neutrogena Pure and Free SPF 60+…for babies (though…oops, maybe not the best choice) and Ultra-Sheer SPF 55 (though again, do your research) have been good contenders.
The next two gifts are not terribly environmentally-friendly, but might be a one-time only foodie idea:
Vanilla Beans
(Gourmet) Salt: It goes really well with anything and can be a quite special sentiment. From Kosher to coarse to finishing salts, you’ve got a great gift for the foodie…though watch your sodium intake.
King Arthur Flour: centralized in Vermont, all this company focuses on is FLOUR. They have multiple beautiful varieties that are worth the reasonable cost. The quality is quite evident in the final product–the sheer uplift in terms of lightness alone!
Sun Protective Clothing: I didn’t know clothing like this even existed until Dr. Hyatt mentioned it. Perfect for the serious gardener or outdoorsman, there are a variety of companies from Solumbra and Coolibar to Columbia Sportswear, Omni-Shade found in Dick’s Sporting Goods. Is Sun-Protective Clothing a farce? Check out the New York Time’s opinion.
Look at you, all prepared for next year! Good job.
Hi there Green Acres Community!
I hope you’ve all been staying warm in your homes, celebrating and eating delicious food over the past few weeks. The site’s been a little quiet as has the garden (we’ve all taken a break together). Most of the plots in the garden have officially gone to bed, however if you take a peek, the radishes, cabbage, collards, beets and carrots do still remain! We’re hoping they’ll grow to a nice mature size in our absence (though as of Monday, they still have a long way to go).
With the completion of the semester, we can now officially (and belatedly) announce that the mulching is complete!
A BIG thank you to:
The Rider News, who provided us with an entire year’s worth of newspapers.
Larry Toth and the lovely rest of facilities, who provided us with the mulch needed.
All the Bonners and volunteers who participated and/or donated cardboard.
Wise faculty who helped advise us.
So…mulching? Turns out, not a lot of people know about the reason behind it. To be honest, I didn’t know too much until I started researching. Mulching is a common gardening practice used to help with weed control and to honestly help beautify a space while distinguishing pathways. A large part is aesthetic, however also functional…by layering different materials, we essentially blocked out all sunshine to the weeds, invariably killing them.
Everyone, meet our beautiful dark-wood mulch. Hello, mulch. You will stop weeds! Go you!
Smooth it all out!
Look at those nice clean lines!
To do all this correctly, we embraced a little of our Italian roots, and used the lasagna method. I know…best name ever!
The video below illustrates what we did perfectly, though multiply the area to our 49×49 ft. garden. Lots of work!
It was about 40 degrees when I took these photos. I’m thinking that beautiful fog is heat?
Interested in channeling some stress into a productive activity? Come till the earth. Need to finish up those community service hours? Breathe in some good crisp air? Today is your day.
We’ll be in the garden starting at 9 am today, working on a good few projects we need to finish: tilling, weeding, tearing out the basil near science and completely finishing mulching. Stop by! Plus it’ll be a nice chance to see just how cute the baby radishes are.
We will also be having our twenty-second garden giveaway of the season today, Thursday , November 15th . Most of the things in the ground are still in their early stages, as mentioned in the update last week– however the kale and herbs are still producing! Some of the herbs are actually on their way out, due to the cold, so make sure to stock up for your holiday dishes . Worried you’ll have extra? Freeze it for later.
Please note, the giveaway will be held from 1 0:30 am. – 12:30 pm . We’re ending a little early, so if you can’t make it before 12:30 please feel free to come clip some herbs on your own! You know what to do; if not, just give me a call.
It’ll be a brisk 38 degrees, so bring mittens!
See you then, Jess Canose
Summer/Fall Garden Manager canosej@rider.edu
Indeed it was 38 degrees…and the mulch was frozen…yet it warmed up nicely after getting some good work done. (More on that in the next coming posts.) Only a few patrons were able to make it, however just from observing you can see how a nice community has developed…people bring friends and coworkers to proudly show off their hard work and take home some beautiful herbs and produce to share with their loved ones this holiday season.
I hope you all had a wonderful day of thanks, Green Acres family. I’m grateful you’re here.
–Jess
The site’s been pretty quiet lately, since we haven’t been outside so much. I hope all those reading are safe and warm after these strange weather happenings. Happily, the garden is still standing (much to my surprise after those winds)– though the kale ‘palm trees’ acquired a quite becoming lean, they’re continuing to grow sideways!
All the things we planted together for fall/winter are coming in strong, although the carrots are still being finicky…hopefully we’ll get them to grow before they freeze. Radishes are beginning to show their beautiful red sprouts only to be overshadowed in the garden by the GIGANTIC leaves forming on the cabbage (that mysteriously also look like collard greens).
Remember this picture? Don’t tell anyone, but I’m pretty sure the arugula is coming back. Shh.
Bunnicula (please tell me someone else out there remembers this childhood classic) has officially eaten all the beans, soybean and broccoli sprouts, so unfortunately we won’t be harvesting that this season. Apparently the cayenne pepper ‘repellant’ we concocted was quite tasty…to bunnies and squirrels alike. (Secretly though, be happy that they had a nutritious meal before the winter sets in. The garden is for all to share!)
Speaking of, please feel free to go out and clip any herbs you may need for this season’s festivities.
Of the ones pictured above, we still have a good deal of that beautiful sage (center) and thyme (bottom right).
There we go, now you can see the sage a bit better.
Also available are some oddly fuzzy-looking marjoram bunches (rounder leaves closer to camera) and about 4,000 stalks of tarragon (thinner herb in the back, often used in French cooking). Get fancy in the kitchen this season!
We actually held our twentieth garden giveaway this Thursday, which seemed like quite a milestone– it was indeed, considering it was the last one featuring summer harvest! The frost was not kind to the garden and unfortunately killed all the tomato, eggplant, pepper and okra leaves/stalks, giving the vegetables very little access to the nutrients they need to grow. Never fear however: we already have cold-weather winter plants growing.
I did want to acknowledge however, the joy that the plants have given us, as Jerry Rife perfectly summarized, ‘gracing our diets and table with fresh produce all summer’. Thank you, plants. It was quite sad to see those companions go –we’ve been through a lot together and I’ve truly learned immeasurably lessons from them– but I guess the best lesson of all was seeing that lovely cycle-of-life come full circle.
The garden looks completely different now! Dr. Hyatt came to devote a ton of time (8 am folks, 45 degrees!!) to pulling up all the plants. (Thank you, Dr. Hyatt!) Four rows are plant-less now, the majority of which I had a chance to till during the giveaway. Fall is truly here…and get excited for some delicious cold-weather produce (more on that later).
For now: There was a baby announcement for the spigot…so of course, I have to say goodbye with my rendition of a childhood tale (and photos, scroll down below). Please tell me I’m not the only one who remembers the beautiful story Goodnight Moon…
“In the great garden there was a shed And a red wheelbarrow And pathways all mulched, with rows quite narrow. And there were three little squirrels eating some beans And two little bunnies looking on at the scene. And listening, a little dragonfly and a young mouse. And a bluebird singing And the plants, so lush And a quiet old grasshopper who was whispering, “Hush.” Good night, peppers, green and red. Good night, garden, soon to bed. Good night, garden fork and broom. Good night, spade and warm afternoon. Good night, eggplant. Good night, ant. Good night, flowers. Good night, rain showers. Good night, fern. Good night, sunburn. Good night, bluejay. Good night, spider’s prey. Good night, beans. Good night, scene. Good night, okra. Good night, plants, so lush. Good night to the old grasshopper whispering, “Hush.” Good night, tomato. Good night, summer fare. Good night, summer everywhere.”
