We Done Dug It!

Starting closest to the road

We hit pay dirt almost immediately!

Moving right along.

The weather was hot but not broiling, making it a perfect day for a great team to do a tough task. Sue and Bill Kleppinger, Josh Marlan, Pete & Mary Alice Steurer, Randi Goodnight, Dani Waters, Irma Allison and Sharon Willen were a coordinated and effective team. Some identified the row hills, zeroed in on tubers, cut vines and harvested, while others ran the produce back to the sorting area and the trash to the brush and bags for disposal.

Finding

Exposing

Harvesting

Whew!

By the time we got almost to the top of the sweet potato garden, we had smiles on our faces. Nothing left to do but sort and divide a healthy harvest.

Almost Done!

What a Haul!

Select this link to see how

 Dazzling Cooperation Makes Easy Work

We pulled 157 pounds of sweet potatoes. Not up to last year's 250 pounds, but much more than we anticipated. You can re-read the last post on how to cure and store. We're told the vole damaged spots on the potatoes will heal and they can be stored, cooked, and eaten. If you choose, you may cut away some areas close to damaged spots, but only just before using the potatoes. Right now, the less handling, the better.

I believe MaryAlice is delivering a box to Al & Joyce, Irma took Ashley and John's, and the boxes for Terri & Doug, Irv and Su, and JoAnne & Burt are on the Willen's front porch. Enjoy! See you on the 27th at the Jordans' for a 5 PM Harvest Potluck.

A Bountiful Year

How did our garden grow in 2015?

We picked zucchini and yellow crook neck till we ran out of recipes. Likewise, we could hardly keep up with the pole beans, in spite of the usual cast of insect predators. We boiled, pickled, roasted, and froze beets, then planted a second crop.

Never tasted cucumbers as good as those we grew this year - thin skinned, sweet, and crunchy. Yum! The bell peppers seemed to have come to us with an ingrown disease, but with the able care of the Harris family, we were able to harvest some. The jalapeño and banana peppers took in the sun and produced the heat.

The okra also did well and we learned how to make spicy fried okra poppers. Double yum!

We're still waiting with fingers crossed for the sweet potato harvest (late September, early October, just before first frost). Hoping the deer, rabbits, moles and all other varmints stay the heck away from our tasty tubers.

And did I mention flowers? Flowers graced our sign (thanks to Su Snyder). But the ones that attracted most attention were those in the gardens closest to the road (Su's and Ashley's) as well as Catherine's sunflowers in a spritely line at the back of the garden.

Last but certainly not least, tomatoes! Having decided not to risk the variables of weather to grow tomatoes as a community crop, each of our gardeners individually couldn't resist the urge. We wound up with tomatoes here, there, and everywhere. A carload and a half - what a year for 'maters!!!

Once again the High Vista Community Garden fed 22 families and donated about 200 pounds of produce to local food banks. Except for the sweet potato harvest, we're pretty much down to dreaming of next year - except for a gleaning and cleaning.

2015 - A bountiful year leaves us filled with gratitude.

Sunshine+Frequent Rains+TLC=A Bountiful Harvest

From our humble beginnings, our  gardens have grown and grown into quite an impressive farm. In addition to picking produce for our own use, thanks to Mary Alice, Irma, Sharon and others several donations have been delivered to local food banks, totaling well over 150 pounds. Here is today's harvest - another food bank run is on the horizon, so if you're a gardener and want cucumbers, radishes, zucchini or crook neck squash - you don't have to go down to pick, just come up to the Willen's Front Porch Market.

ready for the food bank

July 21 - Sharon picked 'em - for you

the radishes jumped out - come up you want some

I'm cooking these beans right now

Our tomatoes, but I picked the cukes for you!

Zucchini (not too large) for whoever wants them

Gratitude is My Attitude

As I sit here so proud of our garden team, what we've done this season so far and how it was accomplished, I am struck by the difference between our cooperative local efforts and the discord simultaneously occurring in Washington, D.C. 

Yesterday, a small group of gardeners arrived in the fields early in the morning to "Pick for Manna Foodbank." This was a vision set in motion by Joyce Davis and Al Cutter, which they materialized along with Ross Aiken, Nancy Dhom, Jeanne Grasperge, Judy Price, Zeke Mitchell, Laurel & Bob Schmidt, and Mike Willen. In two and half hours a carload (over 100 pounds) of fresh produce were selected, brushed off, and placed in containers to be transported by Al and Joyce to the foodbank in downtown Asheville.

All summer long, each of our gardeners have managed to go about their own business - getting children off to college, spending time with grandchildren, taking out of town vacations, working full and part time jobs, taking care of loved ones and households near and far - and yet they also were able to give their best effort to growing major crops together. Today the harvest that was donated came from our individual parcels as well as the community crops - without a thought to the politics, religions, values or demographics of those who would eat what we produced. 

The land we've worked all summer was generously loaned to us by a nearby "homesteader", who said he would enjoy our company as he tended his own garden along side the creek that runs by his home. Nature provided us with a headstart and some challenges - bugs, blight, pesky critters and the ever-uncontrollable weather variations, but no one seemed to get discouraged. No one took sides on "how to proceed." No one needed credit for work done or the achievements that came along. Now why can't Congress behave a bit more like our group?

Who knows what changes will "trickle down" on us from the decisions being made in Washington this week. Most likely the future will demand something more from us than we've had to give or do (or do without) in the recent past. In Transition Hendersonville and Transition Asheville, we have a slogan about meeting disruptive changes in the environment or economy, "If you wait for the government, it will be too late; if you do it yourself, it may be too little; if we work on it together, we're sure to thrive."

The High Vista Community Garden team has proven without a doubt that we are and have neighbors with a community with a can do, will do attitude. Together we will thrive.

Follow this link to a "Pick for Manna Foodbank" photo album. And please heed the note from Mike Pace that we found on the bulletin board this morning: DO NOT THROW DISCARDED PLANT MATTER IN THE SPACE BETWEEN OUR FARM AND THE CREEK - IT IS UNSIGHTLY, SMELLY, ATTRACTS PESTS. BURY IT OR TOSS IT ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CREEK. I will call Mike to apologize for our transgressions. I'm glad he has communicated with us on this.