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Today’s Harvest

By Kathy Martin / September 7, 2020 / tomatoes

A half harvest. The summer vegetables are ripening so fast that we are picking twice a week now.

Photo by Kathy Martin

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There's just something special about #fallcrops! A

There's just something special about #fallcrops! After a few light frosts, most of our tropical plant friends have died back but the cool weather crops are coming in hard! Gorgeous #lettuce #cabbage #carrots #beets #bokchoy #collards #swisschard #kale #spinach #cauliflower #broccoli #celery #celeriac are all doing amazing this year! ...and SOOO tasty!

Harvest scenes as we pack up this load, about 500l

Harvest scenes as we pack up this load, about 500lbs, for @opentablema #morelovelesshunger gorgeous #swisschard, #kale, #bokchoy, #tomatoes #heirloomtomatoes, #organicproduce #foodpantryfarm #cabbage, #peppers

Aurelia sunning herself on this gorgeous afternoon

Aurelia sunning herself on this gorgeous afternoon as we have an impromptu harvest ahead of the nasty rain coming in tomorrow!

Cauliflower! Carrots! Peppers! Oh my! The fall cro

Cauliflower! Carrots! Peppers! Oh my! The fall crops are BOOMING!

We are also thrilled with this cauliflower because it is part of a huge variety trial we are conducting this year. Farmers in our region often have trouble growing cauliflower reliably and rely on a small handful of F1 Hybrid varieties without being able to risk the space to test them. This year, we planted 18 varieties, some OPs, for fall so that we can evaluate how they perform in relation to each other. We look forward to sharing the results of our trial later this winter and hope it helps other farms more easily to grow cauliflower!

Huge harvest yesterday, with ginormous summer squa

Huge harvest yesterday, with ginormous summer squashes and bok choy! Not pictured: lots of tomatoes and Swiss chard too!

#microfarm #allvolunteers #supportlocalfoodbanks #waylandMA #mastergardeners #womenwhofarm #donations #foodinsecurity
#garden #gardening #microfarming #vegetablegarden #vegetables #waylandgarden #zone6garden #localproduce

Another gorgeous morning at the farm... It's been

Another gorgeous morning at the farm... It's been a great year for cabbages and we just transplanted a few hundred more brassica seedlings for our fall harvest!

#microfarm #allvolunteers #supportlocalfoodbanks #waylandMA #mastergardeners #womenwhofarm #donations #foodinsecurity
#garden #gardening #microfarming #vegetablegarden #vegetables #waylandgarden #zone6garden #localproduce

Have you hugged your cabbage today?! We have! Cons

Have you hugged your cabbage today?! We have! Consistently, cabbage is one of our best crops, and we grow a LOT of it! Spring planted rows are coming in fast now, and we are in the midst of planting all our fall brassica seedlings!

Today's harvest included some gorgeous bulb fennel, the last of our spring lettuce, mountains of Swiss chard, beets, squash and zucchini and #kamo eggplant from @gohyang_fields (the earliest of our eggplants BY FAR this year!) all of which was sent off to @opentablema with #morelovelesshunger

And just like that, BAM, the garlic is harvested a

And just like that, BAM, the garlic is harvested and spread out over various locations around the farm to cure! The winner this year is Romanian Red from @filareegarlicfarm - a variety we started trialing 3 seasons ago, this has done beautifully at our field every year, with huge, flavorful cloves and bulbs! Another winner is Bogatyr from @theresa_at_prairie_road which has also been a standout every year for us even before @aurelias.garden was formed! We also love #musicgarlic and #germanwhitegarlic. We try to grow at least 10 different varieties each year for diversity and to trial - it may be time to #settledown and focus on the ones that have consistently performed the best for us!

#teamwork @aurelias.garden ! Nothing would get don

#teamwork @aurelias.garden ! Nothing would get done if we all operated autonomously! This hard working crew of #volunteerfarmers sure knows how to get the job done... TOGETHER!

Lots of progress today in the delightful misty mor

Lots of progress today in the delightful misty morning (ok, it poured for a bit but who's counting?!)! Starting to feel like we are ALMOST caught up with planting - and ALMOST time for succession planting! Today we seeded another big row of carrots, got some more mulching done, and prepared for a HUGE day of planting tomorrow!

#foodpantryfarm #hungerrelief #ecologicalfarming

After an exhausting week of high heat and wicked h

After an exhausting week of high heat and wicked humidity, the farm is in full swing! With still a bit more planting to do, we are finally over the biggest hump of field prep! Our harvests are going strong, and cover cropped areas are buzzing with buckwheat, daikon and peas in bloom! @kathy.martin.315428 is sporting one of our super handy new harvest bags from @johnnys_seeds as she heads off to pick about 15lbs of delicious sugar snap peas! Susan and @nancykahn1 are pictured harvesting #garlicscapes! Today, we were thrilled to deliver our produce to @aurelias.garden
Some victories this year include the incredibly low presence of leaf minor on our Swiss Chard and beets thanks to diligent scouting and removal for the past few years. Another is finally getting weeds under control in our onion rows and lower crab grass pressure overall!!! Hard work pays off folks - in weed management and in pest control. Stay vigilant and take action immediately - learn the life cycles of your pests and weeds and prioritize efforts to strike at the right time with the right tool! More to come this year on what we have learned over 9 years of trial and error!

PSA: Heat stress is real and all of your farmers here in the Northeast have been through the wringer this week. This exhausted #farmgirl is writing this with heavy eyelids, grateful to finally have some rain and respite from the grueling heat.

PLEASE pay a farmer's market a visit this weekend and BUY SOMETHING! Get the last of the magnificent crop of strawberries we've enjoyed this year or the first of the sugar snap peas or anything else in between! #buylocal #supportfarmers
#foodpantryfarm #womenwhofarm #volunteer #volunteerfarmers #bostonareafarmers #bostonareafarm @aurelias.garden

A gorgeous day and huge THANK YOU to @amerescosola

A gorgeous day and huge THANK YOU to @amerescosolar for celebrating #earthday with us and helping us get a jump on some spring tasks! 1300 onions and 300 cabbage seedlings are in the ground! We also poured some much needed love (i.e. compost and mulch) on our #asparagus !

Now we have had more than 10 hours of daylight for

Now we have had more than 10 hours of daylight for more than 6 weeks, the cold-tolerant seedlings that we started late last Fall that have been nestled under our caterpillar tunnels are ready for our first harvest of the year! Today we harvested two nice-sized boxes leaf cabbage, mustard greens, tatsoi, vitamin greens, arugula, and kale and donated them to @la_colaborativa in Chelsea, MA

#microfarm #allvolunteers #supportlocalfoodbanks #waylandMA #mastergardeners #womenwhofarm #donations #foodinsecurity
#garden #gardening #microfarming #vegetablegarden #vegetables #waylandgarden #zone6garden #localproduce

Food Security means a lot of things, but all these

Food Security means a lot of things, but all these 'things' have a common denominator. That is 'access to resources'. Food INsecurity is not a stand-alone problem. It is tied to an overarching INability - due to power imbalances - to access adequate resources of all kinds: money, land, education, self-determination, social standing, to name just a few.

Sharing resources we have access to that others don't is a small - LOCAL - but powerful act we can take to redistribute some of the power imbalances within our own communities.

We are deeply grateful to @johnnys_seeds for their generous donation of seeds for our 2 farming sites! Not only will we be able to plant many of these, we will also share many of these with the clients of our food pantry partners through our Resource and Seed Sharing Initiative!

@opentablema @sudburycommunityfoodpantry @la_colaborativa @medwayvillagefoodpantry

#thinkgloballyactlocally #local #sovereignty #righttoselfdetermination #foodsystem #foodsecurity #securitynotinsecurity #workinginpartnership #community #communitypartners

Our first major winter storm of 2024 brought some

Our first major winter storm of 2024 brought some magical beauty to Patterson's field in Wayland! The snow stopped falling last night, but today, trees are snapping everywhere under the weight of the wet snow that has since frozen solid with this morning's colder temps. We were lucky to find only minor damage from a tall pine limb that fell on our deer fence. We cleared away some of the boughs, all sticky with #pinesap, so that we can access the gate, but we'll have to come back later in the week with chainsaws to cut up the main branches. We also tried to bang snow off the heavily-weighted limbs that hang over our hoop house. The field looks glorious in today's sun, with all the hoops and row covers blanketed in an insulating layer of snow.

#apricity
#microfarm #allvolunteers #supportlocalfoodbanks #waylandMA #mastergardeners #womenwhofarm #donations #foodinsecurity
#garden #gardening #microfarming #vegetablegarden #vegetables #waylandgarden #zone6garden #localproduce

Some treasures slumbering at Patterson's Field, ou

Some treasures slumbering at Patterson's Field, our Wayland site! We have several rows planted with nutritious greens that we will harvest later this winter when the daylight lengthens a bit more! #farming #wintergrowing
#lowtunnel #wintersalad

And, we also are getting ready for a native plant sale later this spring/summer! We have grown all of these northeast native plants from seed! Right now, their pots are nestled into a nice bed of mulch, which will protect their roots throughout the winter cold! We can't wait to share this new adventure with you this spring! #nativeplants #ecosystem #northeast

Happy New Year from Aurelia's Garden to all of you

Happy New Year from Aurelia's Garden to all of you! Thank you for an incredible year and opportunity to grow food for our community! We are so excited for 2024, our FIFTH year farming in Wayland and Medway! Have a safe and joyful new year!

Aurelia's Garden is a nonprofit farming organizati

Aurelia's Garden is a nonprofit farming organization co-founded by four extraordinary women during the outbreak of the pandemic. Our mission is to grow food in an ecologically harmonious way to distribute freely through food pantries in the Greater Boston area. Operating in 2 sites, our largest in Wayland and smaller site in Medway, we cultivate just under 2 acres, distribute to 5 food pantries and reach approximately 450 families each week; sending roughly 12,000lbs of produce a year. Being an entirely volunteer organization, even our leadership, our operating costs go directly towards the supplies needed to grow food. While most startup nonprofits don't make it through their third year, we are proudly marching into our fifth! With a fresh set of ideas for 2024 and a solid track record of delivering on our past goals, we will begin to take steps to not just provide food to help fill an enormous gap in our broken food system, but to also begin contributing our efforts to strengthen amd heal our food system and bolster our communities' ability to grow more food locally. on Giving Tuesday, we humbly ask on behalf of all our volunteer farming force and the clients we serve that you consider donating to our Annual Appeal! Our goal for this fundraiser is $15,000, any amount you care to entrust to us will directly translate into food on the tables of our many neighbors struggling with financial insecurity and lack of access to fresh, nutritious produce!

During this month of gratitude, we'd like to highl

During this month of gratitude, we'd like to highlight some of our partnerships in battling food insecurity!

We are especially grateful for our food pantry partner @la_colaborativa who visited our farm a few weeks ago and left with two full cartloads of about 200 pounds of produce for their pantry, including tomatillos, tomatoes, flint corn, cabbages, #gilo (Brazilian eggplant), carrots, collards, lots of green peppers, and an ample supply of the delightful herb, Huacatay, which has raised quite a bit of excitement amongst La Colaborativa’s clientele!

You can read more about our experiences growing Huacatay (aka “Nematocidal Marigold”), a fascinating plant that is also culturally relevant to the Latin American community, on our blog post! (link in bio)

#huacatay
#microfarm #allvolunteers #supportlocalfoodbanks #waylandMA #mastergardeners #womenwhofarm #donations #foodinsecurity
#garden #gardening #microfarming #vegetablegarden #vegetables #waylandgarden #zone6garden #localproduce

Preparing for our final main season distribution t

Preparing for our final main season distribution this week to our #foodpantry partners @opentablema @la_colaborativa @sudburycommunityfoodpantry and this year, we have been busy all season growing, harvesting and drying many herbs such as this gorgeous parsley! With temperatures finally dipping into the low 20s, we have harvested the last of our open field grown #herbs and spent the weekend getting them into these cute packages! Also being packed up is #huacatay, #sage, #rosemary, #thyme, #celery leaf, and #mint!

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