Getting the garden ready for winter

We are continuing to harvest our fall crops of kale, chard, leeks, winter squash, pumpkins, parsnips, rutabagas, bok choi, broccoli and carrots, and the still-ripening hoophouse tomatoes.

For the beds that aren’t growing any fall or winter crops, it’s time to put them to rest for the winter. Because our soil is so sandy, we’re adding more organic material in the form of compost and aged manure, and turning it in. Then, we’re sowing a cover crop mix of annual rye, fava beans, austrian field peas and crimson clover.

It looks like lots of grass is growing in our beds, but the cover crops will hold the soil and take up nutrients as they grow, thereby reducing the leaching from winter rains. In the spring, 3-4 weeks before planting, all that nutritious vegetation will be turned over to compost back into the soil, nourishing it. So, this winter, we aren’t growing food, we’re growing healthy soil!

Fall comes to the garden

Fall has come to the garden with an early frost! The squash vines all dead, revealing the colorful abundance of pumpkins and winter squash. The bountiful basil now brown.

But there is still plenty that continues to grow! Fall broccoli and chard, plus kale, leeks, bok choi, carrots, parsnips, brussel sprouts and rutabagas.

We’ll harvest almost a thousand pounds of winter squashes and pumpkins: delicata, sweet dumpling, sweet meat, hubbard, and sugar pumpkins. The Sungold cherry tomatoes in the hoophouse are still producing, and we’ve brought in the green tomatoes to see if they will still ripen.

We’re on the Farm Tour!

The Good Cheer Garden is on the Whidbey Island Farm Tour on Saturday, Oct. 3rd and Sunday, Oct. 4th!

The Farm Tour is a free self-guided tour of 20 working farms on our island featuring locally grown food and products.

For maps and brochure go to http://whidbeyfarmtour.wordpress.com/

You can also pick up maps at the Good Cheer Garden, and many other farms, on the day of the tour.

Enjoy touring our beautiful island and see what the other farms are growing, and come see what we’ve been growing for the food bank.

(We also need volunteers to help during the tour, so let us know if you can lend a few hours to welcome tour participants to the garden and share informational material.)

A great harvest festival!

The weather was perfect, the music fabulous, the food delicious, the workshops informative, and the garden just sparkled. The First Annual Harvest Party and Music Fest was a great success! Truly a moment to savor all our hard work, and enjoy the bounty and beauty of what has been created. For more photos and acknowledgments, go to http://goodcheergarden.wordpress.com/events/celebrations-at-the-harvest-party-and-music-fest-2009/

Volunteers grow the garden

Along with sun, soil, seeds and water, it’s the work of volunteers that have grown the garden. Over two hundred volunteers have helped! http://goodcheergarden.wordpress.com/helping/thank-yous/

Our thanks to professional photographer Mary Lou Harris, who volunteered on a Wednesday work party day in August and photographed some of us as we harvested and planted. Enjoy her photos below.

Group photo from left to right: Caroline Winzenreid, Janet Ploof, Mosa Collins, Cary Peterson, Liz Kilmer, Maya Kilmer.

Liz Kilmer harvesting carrots, and children from the South Whidbey Children’s Center washing them.

Bean teepees and Caroline Winzenreid harvesting bush beans.

Maya Kilmer harvesting beans, and Mosa Collins harvesting kale.

Janet Ploof harvesting chard, and Shawn Morris and Judy Bierman planting lettuce starts.

Our thanks also to Mary Lou for taking the new banner photo for the Good Cheer Garden blog!

Harvest Party and Music Fest

Come celebrate the bounty of the garden! It’s going to be a lot of fun!

Harvest Party & Music Fest 2009

Music throughout the Day
Go to http://www.goodcheer.org/musicfest.html for all the details.

Free Community Workshops

Build an herb gift basket
Create garden signs and containers from recycled goods
Learn Composting 101 plus how to build a worm bin
Fresh-from-the-garden-cooking demonstrations
Make a fairy garden
Build Musical instruments from recycled items
Attracting wild birds to your garden
Rags to Riches (make a beautiful rag rug from recycled clothing)

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Festival Food

Come hungry and partake of this festival food from theses local nonprofits.

Good Cheer… Root Beer & Green River floats and Salads from the garden
Island County Sheriff Guild… Hot-diggety hot dogs
South Whidbey Rotary… Ice cream sundaes & Berry milkshakes
CMA Soup Kitchen… Tasty Tacos
South Whidbey Commons… Coffee, tea, cold drinks

Sept. 12 Evening Benefit Dance at Bayview Hall

Nvira Marimba Band at 7 p.m. and the Dark Horse Band at 9 p.m.Tickets are available at Good Cheer Thrift Stores, Good Cheer Food Bank, and The Paint Escape in Freeland.
Tickets: $5 individuals — $10 per family. Tickets are also available at the door for $2 more.

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PLUS MORE!

Bringing in the harvest, and cooking it!

Lots of harvesting! Basil, beets….

… broccoli, chinese cabbage, cucumbers and of course, tons of zucchini and the tomatoes are also coming on strong!

There’s lots to harvest, and lots to eat, so it’s been a great month for cooking classes, too.

Everyone joined in as V Smiley, chef at Mukilteo Coffee Company, showed us how to make delicious slaws by grating carrots, beets, and turnips, and adding finely cut kale- all harvested from the garden.

Damien Cortez led an ongoing cooking demonstration during the W.I.N. (Whidbey Island Nourishes) Garden Tour, and everyone enjoyed different kinds of salads and soups made from veggies from the garden and ingredients from the Food Bank: Tomato caprese (with basil and mozzarella); Mixed salad greens with garbanzo beans; Braised beets with bacon; and Potato Leek soup.

Thanks to all our guests chefs: Kristian Bentsen, Damien Cortez, and V Smiley for a very successful cooking series!

The season is far from over. We’re still planting lettuce and other crops that will take us into the fall and winter, and the pumpkins and winter squash are ripening on the vine!

Cooking classes in the garden

After the harvest- let’s eat! With all the varieties of vegetables and herbs in the garden, it’s time for cooking classes.

Local chefs Kristian Bentsen, V Smiley and Damien Cortez will be sharing delicious and easy recipes for garden veggies in a summer series of cooking classes in the Good Cheer Garden. They will be using produce from the Good Cheer Garden to create tasty and nutritious meals that are simple to prepare.

July 25th, 11 am – 1 pm:   Kristian Bentsen
Kristian has been a chef at Holden Village in the Cascades, cooked for the homeless in Seattle with help from Northwest Harvest and Food Lifeline, and worked at the Langley Village Bakery, Whidbey Pies Cafe, and the Whidbey Institute here on the island. He loves his current new job: caring and cooking for his wife and baby daughter! Kristian will be sharing some of his favorite garden dishes, and also some tips about dairy-free recipes.

August 1st, 11 am – 1 pm:  V Smiley
V grew up raising vegetables and Angus Beef on her parent’s farm in Vermont where she learned about the power and function of food and the shared meal. Here on Whidbey she has been the Guest Chef at Hedgebrook, the women’s writing residency, and now cooks at the Mukilteo Coffee Roaster’s Café, which relies on local producers of vegetables, fruit, meat and eggs. She will be sharing some great recipes for hearty greens such as kale and chard.

August 8th, 11 am – 1 pm:  Damien Cortez
Damien has been a chef at the Beachfire Grill and Prima Bistro, and now is the manager of the Good Cheer Food Bank. He will be cooking up our garden veggies in an ongoing cooking demonstration during the Whidbey Island Nourishes (W.I.N.) Garden Tour, that the Good Cheer Garden is on.

Bring your appetite, and come enjoy the bounty of the garden!

The recent “Cooking with Herbs” class got us started. Bonney Netzel and Nancy Snow explained how to use different herbs, and shared delicious recipes using herbs and vegetables from the garden.

We combined carrots with mint, zucchini with thyme, and home-made rolls with basil, oregano and rosemary. Yum!

Meet Mosa, summer intern!

Welcome to Mosa Collins, our Community Food Advocate intern this summer at the Good Cheer Garden! Here is Mosa telling us a bit about herself, and what her internship involves:

“I am an island-grown Langley-local but for most of the year I am found in the green mountains of Vermont studying Dietetics at UVM. As a rising senior I have come to appreciate the impact food has on the body, as well as the affect each step in the food system has on global health and the many different factors influencing a consumer’s choice of groceries.

Eventually I hope to obtain my license as a registered dietitian and work with families and communities to establish a greater appreciation for food from farm to table.  This strategy is currently used in the international Slow Food movement as a way to inspire others to value quality over quantity and thus, encourage healthy choices over convenient ones.

The Good Cheer food bank and the programs coordinated with the volunteers therein is a perfect example of this holistic effort to inspire quality meals to everyone.  Being a part of this effort at this stage of its development is an invaluable opportunity.  Throughout the summer I have several responsibilities, including: providing healthy snacks and recipes for work parties with ingredients from the food bank, volunteering at said work parties and learning all the steps of having a community garden, and coordinating cooking workshops to empower food bank recipients with confidence to utilize food from scratch.

As a proud product of this fabulous community, I look forward to working with other members in an effort to give back.”

The cooking classes that Mosa is organizing with local chefs will be on July 25, August 1, and August 8th, from 11 am – 1 pm in the Good Cheer Garden http://goodcheergarden.wordpress.com/2009/07/14/cooking-classes-in-the-garden/

Stay tuned for the recipes for some of the healthy snacks that we’ve been enjoying on work days!

Thank you Mosa!

Youth helping the garden grow

Youth groups on the island have been helping the Good Cheer Garden grow!

On July 1st, students from the Coupeville High School Summer Program helped harvest peas, carrots,

and mixed greens. They hauled alpaca manure and bagged leaf mulch for the compost,

and also worked in the food bank and the distribution center.  Our thanks for the whirlwind of activity that helped Good Cheer in many ways!

Children from the South Whidbey Children’s Center summer program have selected several local non-profits to volunteer at this summer, and they will be coming to the Good Cheer Wednesday garden work parties every other week! Recently they helped with pulling up the peas and harvesting zucchini, and also enjoyed a great picnic, including fresh vegetables and berries from the garden.  We appreciate their ongoing commitment and help!

Youth from the Alternatives-to-Detention program of Island County Juvenile Court, supervised by Leon Shordon, have been a steady presence in the garden. First, with the sifting of the beds, and then with planting, weeding, and composting. Our thanks for their ongoing contribution! Check out the green and lush squash hillside… they prepped and planted most of it!

Bayview School students from the “Gardening as Science” class taught by Michele Sakaguchi have helped in the garden, planting a spectacular bed filled with delicious and nutritious green, and also weeding and helping with the harvest. They also grew their own vegetable garden at the school, which provided food for the Food Bank.  Kudos!

Jorn Aronson’s History class at South Whidbey High School helped in the garden with weeding, soil prep, manure hauling and laying out irrigation lines. Their garden work was part of an overall program of volunteer service to all aspects of Good Cheer.

The Edmonds Community College Service Learning Program (LEAF) came for a day of service in the garden and the Food Bank. They prepped the soil, planted, and mulched, and also worked in the food bank and the distribution center. A great way to learn, and serve!

Coupeville High School student Dan Kostek, and South Whidbey High School student Michaela Mattens did their senior project on composting, and interned with Janet Hall, WSU Waste Wise Coordinator. Dan and Michaela helped put together the garden’s composting system- tumblers, 3-bin systems, and worm bins! Now all of Good Cheer’s food waste and garden debris can be returned to the garden as compost!

And then, way back in February, Angela Lindstrom’s Waldorf School Third Grade class, with their families, dug out all the paths and beds in the garden- in just 2 1/2 hours! An amazing feat that helped launch the garden.

The next generation is growing the garden, and the garden is helping them grow!