Radish Love

Our plan to flood the beds with radishes early in the season has payed off in large form!  On Saturday June 9th we pulled in twenty-five pounds of radishes and radish greens!  We still have not exhausted the radishes that were planted at the beginning of the year and as we pull radishes we have begun to replace them with other crops.  This was a great plan to come out swinging in the early season with plenty to offer to our friends at Vital Bridges Groceryland.

Pictured here: A French Breakfast Radish "frenches" Dave

We carefully wash radishes that have been kissed

So many radishes had we that we decided it was just too many to unload on Vital Bridges all at once.  According to Super-volunteer Susan, "About 2/5ths went to Vital Bridges 3/10ths went to volunteers and 12/40ths went to some new recipients."  The new recipients include Lakeview Food Pantry and Red Door Animal Shelter got the greens.  The greens, can be too much for our compost in large numbers because they need to be balanced with other type of matter and litter, and we assume that many of the donated greens end up in the garbage, so it's great news to us that we can be offering our awesome organic leaves to hungry bunnies!

Volunteer Annie posing before Ginkgo's bounty at Vital Bridges.

Weed of the Week: Velvetleaf

Allow me to introduce the Velvetleaf. Of all the weeds we battle at Ginkgo, this is my favorite - it's easy enough to pull up and has the softest leaves and stems imaginable. Cool seed pods too!

A member of the Mallow family, Abutilon theophrastii is an annual that can grow several feet tall. It flowers sparingly in the late summer and early fall and attracts several different types of bees. 

And while I can't personally attest to this statement from IllinoisWildflowers.info, I don't doubt it:  "In an outdoor emergency, the soft leaves can be used as a substitute for toilet paper."  

Berries and Plums and Pears, Oh My!

 

 Raspberries!  We arrived this weekend at the garden to Raspberries, development on our fruit trees, plenty of radishes, and lettuce.

 Did I mention Gooseberries?  Cause those are doing their thing too!  While I can count the amount of gooseberries that I've eaten on one hand, I cannot quantify my love for their translucent glowing green fruit.

Ginkgo's plums had a rough season in 2011, but, as you'll recall,  on Saturday September 12, 2009 we pulled in 60 lbs of Stanley Plums.  We didn't get to give the trees the TLC they deserve this winter because of the confusing weather, so it's hard to tell what will happen this year.  There are plenty of dead green plums on the ground and a few live ones still hanging in the trees, so cross your fingers for a decent plum season.

 Our growing pears look absolutely delicious.  I have my eye on this one.

 Other notes of progress: We began the 2012 season by loading our beds up with radishes.  Radishes grow quickly and grow well in cool weather, which means that we could get a lot of them in the ground while it was too cold for other things and then have early season offerings for Vital Bridges.  As we harvest the radishes we will replant the beds with other crops.

 For the second week in a row we have had a variety of radishes to deliver to the pantry.  Normally I'm not a big fan of radishes, but somehow I can't help but sample these beauties.

And none of this even mentions the fact that Evelyn installed a gutter!  We can finally start harvesting rain from the front half of the shed's roof!  WOOH!










 On another note, I give my sincerest apologies to anyone who came to the garden on Wednesday night to volunteer.  I was stuck in transit and arrived late by over half an hour. This is not at all typical of Ginkgo and I hope that nobody was discouraged from coming back this Saturday or next Wednesday.  Our Wednesday night hours are 6:30 until dark and this week was a fluke.  We appreciate your coming out and giving your time to a great effort.  This is not taken for granted.