Come to the garden this Saturday morning for the monthly Work Day. Get your hands dirty, check out the new “Compost Corral”, see how much the veggiges have grown or just meet fellow garden folks. The day starts at 10AM. Everyone is welcome!
On Saturday and Sunday, the compost bin building crew (Kate, Pat, Rico, Jerah and Perrin) joined forces digging, sawing, measuring and drilling. Bravo guys–the end result is beautiful! Looking forward to dumping chunks of rotten cucumbers and funky old carrots in the new compost “corral”.
compost bin construction
05.31Pickling 101
While on a break from building the new compost corral, Jerah gave a lesson on the basics of pickling. She also shared some of her home-pickled veggies–cabbage, onions and turnips which got a subtle kick from herbs and garlic. Jerah also made use of a bunch of collard green plants from the garden that were on the way to the bin when she intercepted them and took them home to pickle. The pickling process is pretty simple - food is preserved in a solution of salt in water (brine) - but the end product is full of complex flavors, healthy and deeee-licious! I picked up some Kirbys on Sunday at Fairway and I can’t wait to start on my first batch of pickles. Soon enough we’ll have tasty veggies from the garden to pickle. Look for a post later this week of Jerah’s pickling instructions.
Kids enjoying the Garden
04.19DIY Soil Testing
If you would like to test your individual plots for lead, contact University of Massachusetts Soil testing lab (see below). It costs about $10. Last year the BQLT did some soil testing. Our pathways have some lead in the soil. The community and kids plots have almost no lead. Samples from all the other plots were mixed into one and had a small amount of lead. This may have been from contamination from a single plot. I know some individual plotholders have tested for lead and found no problem.
To test the soil in your own plots email: soiltest.psis@umass.edu
Telephone: (413) 545-2311
Plant Tissue Testing Lab
West Experiment Station
University of Massachusetts
Amherst, MA 01003
