At the beginning of the summer, I blogged about our garden. I promised an update, both on the harvest and whether I succeeded in using the garden to teach my girls about the agricultural mitzvot.
Some of our crops were bountiful. We had pounds and pounds of purple pole beans, and enough cucumbers to make us all a little sick of cucumbers. We even managed to avoid the tomato blight that decimated tomato crops up and down the east coast; we had lots of cherry tomatoes and a few delicious large tomatoes.
The sunless month of June led some of our crops to never quite get off the ground, so to speak.
This was our largest carrot:
and this was our only cantalope. Cute, isn’t it?
Fortunately, other farms in the area had enough produce, and generous enough farmers, to participate in The Gleaning Project of Western MA, a local effort (under the auspices of the Jewish federation) to get fresh produce into the hands of those in need. A few weeks ago my daughters and I joined a small group of volunteers to pick tomatoes.It was hot. They kvetched. And kvetched some more. We only managed to pick for less than an hour. But we were part of an effort to take thousands of pounds of a bumper crop of tomatoes to several local pantries, and I’m glad we went. Someday, I hope, the girls will be too.
Are you a sucker for John Denver too? (If not, then surely you are a sucker for the Muppets.)