Record Breaking Day in the Garden!

Back, L to R: Denise Lemon, Dawn Rossi, Keith Miller & Don Thron
Front, kneeling: Joy Grognet

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed individuals can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead

We had a small group from Andersen Corp. volunteer today, and what an amazing change they made in the Giving Garden. Not only did this group of four pick the 2nd largest poundage for a single day, they took the produce to Valley Outreach, stocked the shelves, performed other work there, and then returned to the garden for ‘more’.

Joy from our office worked along side to familiarize them with our garden and its rhythms. I heard there was much laughter amongst the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

This mornings harvest yielded 161.4 pounds of produce; bringing us to an YTD total of 1,825.3 pounds! Denise, Don, Keith and Dawn were responsible for breaking last years’ record by 18.5 pounds! But…, they didn't stop there. When they found out that there were two other larger harvest days (173.4 and 214.1), they harvested the potatoes, some parsley, and with the addition of one monstrous zucchini, brought the daily total to 176.6 lbs. Our new annual total sits at 1,840.5 pounds; 33.7 lbs more than 2009. This was one motivated group!

As for our potato crop, well, three barrels this year only produced a total of 7.9 pounds of potatoes. The photo shows the tiniest of these gems… quarter size to be exact!

After the afternoon harvest, the group successfully freed our poor strawberry plants from the grips of every type of weed imaginable. With keeping with a 100% organic garden, our first priority has been keeping the weeds at bay in vegetable rows. The poor strawberries? Well, they had disappeared until this afternoon.

We are very, very fortunate to have met these new friends from the Valley. We extend a sincere thanks to the four of you. Not only for all of your hard work, but for bringing your spirit of giving to this giving garden.