15 Jan Growing Microgreens

Microgreens are the young seedlings of edible plants. They are tiny and yet packed with nutrients.  Here at the Well Fed Community Garden, we are usually growing 20 or more trays of microgreens in our small greenhouse. They are easy and quick to grow.

We plant microgreens twice a week, after each harvest. They take about two weeks in the winter to grow from seed to harvest. Here are some pictures of microgreens ready for harvest.

Sunflower microgreens

Radish microgreens

Radish microgreens

After harvesting the microgreens, we combine them in a sink to rinse them. Our microgreen blend is a mix of many plants: radish, flax, sunflower, and spicy salad mix.

Our microgreen blend after being rinsed.

Next we spread the microgreen blend across the drying rack screen (made by our farm manager Morgan!) and turn on a high powered fan to dry the microgreens before packaging them.  This helps them to last longer in storage.

Finally we package up our microgreen blend to bring to the Irregardless Cafe, occasionally tossing in some nasturtium flowers to add color and spice.

We try to grow microgreens year round and the blends can change with the season.  Look out for our microgreens in dishes at the Irregardless Cafe!

07 Dec A Day in the Life: Farm Dog Edition

There is frost on the ground and it is feeling like winter at the Well Fed Community Garden! But the activity does not slow down here; there is always work to be done. As always, we start by feeding the chickens. As the farm dog, I keep a very close eye on our coop to make sure that they stay safe.This could be my full-time job but there are more morning chores to get to.

Next stop is the greenhouse. In this cold weather we give the plants a little more insulation and heat to keep them healthy, and every morning we open up the greenhouses to let some fresh air in and we water the plants and check on our hydroponic lettuce.

We value teamwork, so today I showed puppy Theo how to help our produce assistant, Janette, take care of things in the greenhouse.

After that the morning chores are done and we move on to harvest!The cold weather means we’re growing lots of greens, such as arugula, kale, and our mustard mix. We need to be efficient when harvesting, but we also have to take our time enough to make sure we are thorough in every step. Greens can be delicate, our team is careful to not damage the leaves as we work, and we are meticulous about our sanitation practices while we clean and package the produce.

I like to keep a close eye on things just to make sure everything is done correctly.

After we finish with harvest there are always a number of tasks that need to get done. On any given day we might be planting, weeding, pruning, building a new compost fence, checking for caterpillars, and more.

Today we’re prepping beds for planting. We always add compost to our fields before we sow the seeds to increase the nutrient content in the soil. We try to keep things growing at all time, not only to increase our production, but also to have roots in the ground to prevent the soil from eroding and to feed the soil microorganisms. That means that all year long we are constantly turning our beds over from one crop (or cover crop) to another.

After planting we are done for the morning and it is time for lunch. There’s more work in the fields to do this afternoon but I usually need to use that time to keep the squirrels out of the farm.

About the blogger:

Bella Pepper Malone has been the full-time farm dog at the Well Fed Community Garden since August 2016. Her main focus is pest control but she also helps with quality assurance and community engagement. Her favorite treat from the garden is sweet potatoes.

12 Nov Our First Season Growing Turmeric and Ginger

Here at the Well Fed Community Garden we have a diversity of vegetables, fruit brambles and trees, and flowers growing, and are always open to learning and growing new crops. Our latest learning adventure has been growing turmeric and ginger! Turmeric and ginger can help soothe an upset stomach, have anti-inflammatory properties, and add delicious flavor to meals.  Below are some pictures of our turmeric and ginger plants growing throughout the season:

We ordered our turmeric and ginger seed pieces from a farm based in Hawaii.  The local seed sources and the sources from Hawaii tend to sell out quickly.  Now is the time to buy seed pieces if you would like to grow your own turmeric and ginger next season. We pre-sprouted our seed pieces in the greenhouse to get the root and shoot buds to start growing and extend the season before planting them in the ground (see photo above and below).  When pre-sprouting be sure to disinfect your seed pieces beforehand if needed.  Do not over-water them once planted in a pre-sprouting tray; this can lead to the ginger staying dormant.  Our ginger did not pre-sprout as well as we were hoping this first time around, but our turmeric did great!

After 4-6 weeks, we took our trays of pre-sprouted turmeric and ginger and planted them out in our caterpillar tunnel, 4 inches deep and 6 inches apart (see photo below).

We hilled our turmeric and ginger plants twice throughout the season with a decomposed leaf mulch to help increase yields.

We replaced our caterpillar tunnel plastic with a shade cloth once summer started heating up.  In the photo above you can see our turmeric plants growing under the shade cloth.

About 5 months after planting the pre-sprouted seed pieces, we harvested the ginger and turmeric for baby ginger and baby turmeric.  Baby ginger has no skin to peel and no fibers, but also stores for less time.  Above is a photo of our turmeric right after harvesting them with a digging fork.  We tried to get off as much soil as possible and then sprayed them clean (see the three photos below).

Above is a photo of our clean baby ginger.

The above two photos show baby turmeric after cleaning and throughout the processing.

It was really fun to grow turmeric and ginger and we look forward to next season’s crop!

29 Oct What is in Season: October 2018

October brought us the last of the summer vegetables, sweet potatoes, lots of greens, and our first harvest of turmeric and ginger!

With the temperature cooling down, our peppers hung in there until this past week. Our volunteers worked hard collecting over 70 pounds of peppers, pulling up the plants, and weeding the beds. If you are interested in getting your hands dirty, we always welcome volunteers on Thursday mornings 9:30am-12pm.

With all the rain and cool weather, October brought us a couple great harvests of our shiitake mushrooms. Join us for our Shiitake Mushroom Workshop November 3 at 2pm to learn how to inoculate your own log to bring home!

The colors of the month are…green and orange! Here are some pictures of the greens coming in and the beautiful orange root vegetables we harvested this month.

Cilantro

Kale

Arugula

Tatsoi, which is part of our spicy greens mix

Mustard greens, which are part of our spicy greens mix

The first true leaves of our spinach are growing.

Head lettuce

Turmeric

Ginger

Sweet potatoes

We still have some bright flowers dotting the garden with color and providing pollen for the bees.

Lantana

Mexican sage

Blanket flower

Echinacea

We have been drying tarragon flowers to add to our teas, which will be available to purchase at the Irregardless Cafe in the coming months.

Purple aster flowers taking over the entrance to the garden.

25 Sep What is in Season: September 2018

September brought us more summer vegetables like peppers and okra, the start of fall vegetables, and some beautiful flowers in our pollinator garden! Here is a sample from the garden.

The okra and pepper plants are still doing well out in the field and the peppers are as sweet as ever.

Hibiscus is in the same family as okra.  We started harvesting the seed pods this month to dry and make our own herbal teas.

Keep an eye out for our hibiscus tea and a new digestion tea at the Irregardless Cafe!

Dehydrator full of mint, tulsi, and lemon balm drying for the digestion tea.

Our second planting of Buddha beans, a type of green bean, is in bloom and the beans are fresh and crisp right off the vine.

Our sweet potatoes have been doing great, providing a prolific amount of scrumptious greens for the Irregardless Cafe. We will be harvesting our sweet potatoes at our Sweet Potato Harvest Party Sunday Oct 14th and welcome any volunteers who would like to come get their hands in the dirt at the Well Fed Community Garden to help harvest these terrific tubers!

September has brought the first harvests of some of our fall crops.

Fennel growing in the fields.

Our spicy greens mix consists of nasturtium greens and flowers, mustard greens, tatsoi, and arugula.

The firsts of our carrots germinated this month.

Our pollinator garden has some summer and fall flowers in bloom.  Here are a few samples of what you can find adding color to the garden.

Dahlia

Obedient flower

Wild onion

Aster

Goldenrod

27 Aug What is in Season: August 2018

We often get the questions “what is in season?” and “what is in bloom at the garden?” Well, here is your answer! August brought us lots of yummy summer fruits, vegetables, and flowers! Here is a sample from the garden.

Heirloom and cherry tomatoes

There is nothing better than a fresh tomato or sweet pepper straight from the field.

Sweet yellow, orange, and red peppers

With all the rain we had this August, there were a few early shiitake mushrooms from our logs

Shiitake mushrooms

We love working with our farm to table restaurant Irregardless Cafe. By working every week to create local and fresh recipes we had some excellent specials featuring our produce this month.

Fried okra

Eggplant Parmesan

We also had lots of sweet figs from our pollinator garden. Some varieties that we grow include Black Mission, Brown Turkey, and Calimyrna.

Figs

Our pollinator garden is in full summertime bloom. Here are a few samples of cut flowers and native flower species we grow in our garden. Flowers are a beautiful and easy way to promote beneficial insects in your garden.

Zinnias

Beauty berry

Marigold

Annual aster