The Reason for the Deer Fence

Last Wednesday morning, Thomas and Paul spotted a doe and her nursing fawn in the field surrounding the garden. That night, volunteers were treated to two older fawns eating and cavorting in the same pasture. So far so good as far as the deer fencing goes. It's holding.
 
 
 

When It's Not Raining - We're Working

April & Teddy work on finishing up the potato harvest.
 
Andrew, Mike, David & Paul work on digging, de-rocking and shaping what used to be the squash beds. Three days later, we have them in cabbage and kale starts donated by Flying Cloud Farm.
 
Andrew, Becky and Paul in a beautiful light as they work to shape the new beds.
 
Susan bags up the beans she harvested for delivery to Food For Fairview.
 
Thanks to everyone for pitching in while Franklin is recovering.

End of August Work

Susan & Salem pick beans for harvest.
 
Kelsey harvests the last of the potatoes.
 
We pulled out lots of summer crops that were finished and are now planting fall and even spring crops.
 
David Fletcher - a steady, Wednesday night volunteer, pulls weeds and picks up rocks.
 

The Adults Weren't Just There To Supervise!

The adults got their hands dirty as well. At one point I asked for a group of those who were non-squeamish. Certain ones rallied forward and were chosen to squish bean beetles and larvae. Educational and gory. How perfect.
 
From a distance, you could see the corn swaying gently and knew that folks were in the patch beating the racoons to the bounty. We picked close to 200 ears today alone.
 
 

Harvesting Potatoes

The kids employed many tactics in finding every last potato in the patch. The job most adults seem to loath, they were keenest to do. We actually had to pull them off and make them stop.
 
 
 
This is only a partial load out of three truckloads. What a harvest God has blessed us with.
 

New Friends

A group of thespians from School of the Arts in Winston Salem are camping out at Hickory Nut Gap Farm nearby and offered to help us at The Lord's Acre this week. They cut bamboo stakes all morning (a huge job and a huge help) and then took a tour of the garden. Thanks to Issak, Matt, Molly and Robin - if I got your names wrong, email me.
 
Today the middle school youth from Fletcher United Methodist came to help us harvest. And a harvest it was. Three truckloads! Food For Fairview clients were down today so we brought a truckload to Manna.
 
Corn, potatoes, carrots, beets, beans, squash, cukes, tomatoes, peppers and more.
 
The kids TRIED not to spray each other while washing the veggies. They were muddy and happy when they left. We couldn't have done it without them !!! Thanks guys & gals.
 

Green Thumbs in August

Green thumb and fingers after working the tomato plants.
 
August bounty.
 
Our first corn harvest was July 31st and there's more to come. So far the racoons have stayed away.
 

Crops Coming In - August

The okra is enjoying August weather. We had to replant after the hail this spring.
 
Our first bean harvest will be tomorrow morning. These were planted by volunteer - Holly.
 
We turned under our first crop of buckwheat a few weeks ago and it's returned as planned. Buckwheat is our summer cover crop this year and starts setting seed from the bottom up. Once we had enough seed set, Franklin turned it under and soon we had our second (free) crop.
 
Kid's Garden: A week and a half ago four kids planted three beds and you can see the results. They need to be thinned and need a little flea bettle control, but other than that, the kids are on their way to harvesting their own crop for the hungry.
 

Corn's Ready

Last week we harvested three sacks of corn for the food bank with about thirty ears in each sack. In late spring, it was the first thing we planted and the young plants looked a bit forelorn, the only green tips sprounting in the entire half acre. Soon we sowed a second planting. Once the first batch was six-eight inches tall, hail hit and shredded the leaves but corn is a tenacious plant and it rallied as you can see.  
 
 
Corn is actually a type of grass or grain and not a vegetable at all. The average ear has sixteen rows and averages about 800+ kernels per ear. Each thread of silk is attached to a potential kernel. If you sometimes see ears that are only partially filled out, poor pollination is the reason. Poor pollination can occur if corn isn't planted in blocks or if at that critical time, there is drought, hail or insect dammage. Luckily our dammage occured early and we're now able to add fresh sweet corn to our harvests.