Thinking outside the box

Gardener, Atsuko Biars came up with an idea to to use some of our harvest to create Rosemary Infused Oil and Basil Infused Salt. Atsuko, along with the help of fellow gardener, Sara Godbee, took the time to put these unique culinary elixirs together. The plan was to see them during the Summer Serenades series, however, the product sold out within minutes of Atsuko sending out an e-mail. Profits of the sale were donated to the Maryland Food Bank. Kudos, Atsuko and Sara!

Sharing our Harvest

As part of our commitment to our community garden, we agreed to donate 50% of our harvest to a local organization. The organization selected is the Assistance Center of Towson Churches. This organization is composed of 48 church congregations and offers emergency assistance for needy and poor families, covering 21 zip code areas. Over the last two weeks, a volunteer within the gardening community has taken what produce we have available for donation to the center. Sara J and Maureen have both commented on how gracious the organization is to receive this donation and how happy their clients are to be able to obtain fresh produce. Maureen was last week's volunteer and commented that a representative from the Assistance Center of Towson Churches would like to come see the garden and take some photographs.

In addition to what we have donated from our garden, organic produce that is left over from the One Straw Farm delivery each week has also been added to our donation basket. Thank you, Maureen!

It's a jungle out there...

Thanks to the many rainy days we had this spring, our community garden has grown tremendously. When you head down Cottage Lane, all you can see are leaves to squash plants and huge tomato vines. My gardening team picked our first zucchini of the season last week and we have more coming. I hear that some radishes were harvested last week as well. By the looks of our cucumber plant, I think we're going to have a lot of cucumbers to share!

We have had some challenges with the garden. Our hose developed a large gash, therefore we are very thankful for the HaSS tool box (thank you to Jim Salvucci and the HaSS students) which houses a watering can we've been using so we're not hauling buckets of water to the garden. My team's garden plots also ran into an ant problem toward the end of May. So, I Googled organic ways to take care of pests and found that baking soda takes care of it. I gave it a whirl and it worked! I also hear that cinnamon does the trick too.

Time to search for some more cucumber and zucchini recipes...

And it begins...

The SU Community Garden is blooming into its first year. Our organic garden is part of the Blue U initiative. Not only are we creating a healthy activity and lifestyle for ourselves, we as gardeners have agreed to donate 50% of our harvest to area homeless shelters and soup kitchens.

Our garden consists of 14 raised beds and a centerpiece of rosemary and thyme. Construction of the garden began in April and by the second week of May, planting had been done in each of the 14 plots.

With an incredibly rainy May, Mother Nature has taken care of the watering of the garden and the plants are quickly growing. Here's to a plentiful harvest!