Gallery of Givers - July 2011

So much has been happening since last we posted. This is the time of year when the gardens begin to grow in leaps and bounds! Though this has been the coolest and wettest spring that we've had for a long time, we're finally starting to get some real summer weather. Here is a gallery which will show you some highlights of the people and projects in the garden.

Kaitlyn helps Chris harvest garlic. That's celery in "sleeves" in the foreground.

Kaitlyn with garlic harvest

Larry and Germaine harvesting and weeding beets. Our tomatoes (in A-frame cages) are getting nice and bushy and starting to ripen steadily now.

Weeding and harvesting.

Renee and Johan pull the last of the broccoli plants. Time to soak the compost pile and tarp it so it will start to decompose. Renee has been a big help this spring as she comes weekly to help and harvest food to take to the bi-weekly Senior Lunch program in Monroe at the Legion Hall.

Danielle sifting compost. Rich with worm castings and eggs it makes a great top-dressing or tilled into the beds. This is the end product of our hay-bale compost piles.

Jan has been one of our steadiest volunteers this year. Here she is spreading straw in the garden paths.

Ken helps build tomato cages.

Jennifer, Llyn and Dawn transplant Shag Bark Hickory tree seedlings.

Larry helps Chris plant and mulch potatoes. Curtis, at the Food Bank gave us fifty pounds (!) of sprouting potatoes. I think we're going to have a fine harvest this year.

Fun at the gardens. John, Chris, Jennifer and Llyn (Sorry, Dawn, I cut off your face holding up the camera like I did.)

Herman and Liz brought us a full truck load of grass clippings from behind their church. "Mulch" thanks!

Our kale harvest has been abundant this year. We were having a hard time giving it all away each week till we added this sign at the Food Bank. "Tastes like broccoli...Cook it like spinach..." Sometimes people need help in trying unfamiliar foods.

Mike Hall adds onions to 'what's cookin' at a recent community dinner hosted by Monroe's Methodist Church...

...and Phyllis Derr helps with the dishes. She's been donating her grass clippings for garden-mulch all spring. Thanks!

We sold our dear little 1947 Farmall Cub to a young couple getting their own organic farm started near Albany, Oregon. Glad to see the Cub's going to a working home and won't just be a museum piece. These tractors were designed for small-scale vegetable farming and 1947 was the first year they were built. Their website is http://pitchforkandcrow.com/

Ken, a happy helper! Job well done.

Aside from the volunteers, pictured and "behind the scenes", we'd also like to thank these people for their contributions to the garden's success:
Tina - ice cream buckets with lids
Renee and Johan Ferrer - T-post driver
Judy Todd - cash donation
Jo Ellen Watts - gardening boots and plant tags
Phyllis Derr - grass clippings
Chuck and Betty Conway - cash donation
Liz and Herman Koontz - grass clippings from Church of Christ mowings
The Tribune News who continue to publish our articles and wish-lists.
Tom Goracke - 30 bales of nicely rotting grass-straw, complete with pigeon poop "frosting" on the top bales. Keep 'em coming!

We've been receiving regular anonymous donations of pots/flats and hoses. Much thanks for these. Whatever we can't use goes to good homes. Apologies if we haven't specifically acknowledged someone. You are appreciated!