A FUN-tastic Year in the Bee Happy Garden

FUN had another FUN-tastic year at Bee Happy, donating close to 2000 pounds of produce in 2024.

It's been far too long since FUN provided an update on our gardens! This post will be a bit longer than usual to catch you up on all the exciting (and challenging) things that happened this year.

Following a bountiful spring, we experienced a scorching summer with temperatures consistently exceeding 90 degrees for much of the prime growing season. While some plants thrived in the heat, others struggled.

Cucumbers were prolific, we harvested over 50 in one day. Zucchini seemed to grow right in front of our eyes. Tromboncino squash were plentiful and robust. Our pepper plants, especially the habaneros and jalapenos, produced an abundance of fiery fruits. We had a bumper crop of basil, in constant production until fall.

Two varieties of tomatoes, Sunset Sauce (yellow) and Verona (large grape), thrived in the summer sun, while a third couldn’t tolerate the heat and wasn’t as abundant.

Every summer, we learn something new. This year FUN learned that green beans don’t grow well above 90°. Their flower production was stunted, subsequently our pole bean production was mediocre. We did redeem ourselves with green bush beans which seemed to flourish

Unfortunately, FUN’s hope for a bountiful cucuzzi gourd

harvest was dashed. It was a beautiful plant, with generous vines but fruiting was impacted by the extreme heat. Another instance of extremely high temperatures preventing the plants from producing flowers, resulting in very few gourds.

Fall crops were a great success. We harvested a plentiful crop of turnips in October. Peppers continued to produce until Thanksgiving, while leaf lettuce, kale, and romaine were harvested until the first week of December.

January is a time for reflection, planning, and looking forward to the new growing season. We'll be carefully analyzing our successes and challenges from this year to make informed decisions about our garden plans for 2024. FUN is never ending in our garden! 

FUN-nomenal Spring Harvest

 

Buttercrunch and Romaine April 4th

FUN's dedication to fresh, local produce shone through this spring with a phenomenal harvest, exceeding 600 pounds of delicious greens, turnips, and green onions! Thanks to a mild winter, we were able to get a head start in March, picking crisp lettuce, spinach, and kale planted the previous fall.

FUN had a fantastic time planting and harvesting turnips, bok choy, green onions, romaine, buttercrunch, leaf lettuce, spinach and kale.

Buttercrunch May 7th

Romaine May 7th

But FUN's success didn't stop there! We are forever grateful for the help of Miller Farm. Their seedlings were instrumental in ensuring we had flourishing crops in all 24 of our garden beds.

Spinach May 22nd

Green Onions May 22nd

In fact, our harvest was so plentiful, we had a delightful challenge of finding storage for all the fresh produce – a problem we happily welcome!

Looking ahead, FUN's summer season is bursting with potential. We've planted a diverse selection of vegetables, including 3 varieties each of tomatoes and squash, 4 types of hot peppers, 3 varieties of sweet peppers, 2 each of cucumbers and green pole beans, and fragrant basil.

And in an exciting first for FUN, we've also planted a special type of edible gourd that we can't wait to share with our clients!

Stay tuned for updates on our summer harvest bounty!

FUN Fall Harvest in 2023 and a Look Ahead in 2024

 

Harvest October 25, 2023: cilantro, kale, and peppers

Food Uniting Neighbors had a fantastic fall harvest this year! Our garden was overflowing with a variety of fresh produce, including: 3 varieties of lettuce, hearty bok choy and kale, sweet turnips and hakurei turnips, delicious gazelle spinach, cilantro, earthy beets, and for the first time ever, we grew rutabagas!

We harvested our delicious summer peppers until the end of October. At our last harvest for the season in December, our garden was still providing us with beautiful romaine lettuce, vibrant rutabagas, and sweet beets.

Hakurei and globe top turnips 

Black seeded simpson and leaf lettuce

Cilantro

As winter settles in, the FUN team is already dreaming of spring. We're spending our days poring over seed catalogs and meticulously planning our next season's crops. We can't wait to get our hands dirty again and fill our garden with even more fresh, healthy food for our community.

Gazelle spinach

We're hoping that 2024 will blossom with joy and that our next harvest will be even more bountiful than the last. We're looking forward to the next season, sharing our love of growing food, and nourishing our community!

FUN this Summer

 

July 26, 2023

It’s been a banner year in Bee Happy Garden with over 1300 pounds of food donated to the community. Our summer crops flourished, with bountiful harvests of tomatoes, 5 varieties of squash, 3 varieties of cucumbers, green bean, and loads of peppers both sweet and spicy.

5 Varieties of Squash

As we always like to try growing something we haven’t tried before, as well as meet the needs of the clients, FUN decided to grow 2 types of Korean squash, aehobak and puthobak. These are C. muschata varieties and not affected by the dreaded squash vine borer. The squash was a big hit!

In the picture to the left, top row is yellow summer squash and zucchini. Round puthobak, long aehobak, with tromboncino at the bottom.

Two new-to-us varieties of tomatoes proved to be winners: Verona, a large grape indeterminate variety, and Sunrise Sauce, a yellow-gold determinate plum tomato, thank you Johnny’s Select. Romas and stupice varieties added to the collection.

Piccolino, sweet slice and diva cucumbers

Peppers are prolific, thanks to our ardent pepper plant provider, Harry. In the sweet category, we have banana, corno di toro, and shishito. On the hot side of things, we have chili peppers, cayenne, jalapenos, Hungarian wax, and orange habaneros.

We started the fall plantings throughout September.  Kale, collards, rutabaga, cilantro, leaf lettuce, spinach and turnips are growing well. Beets, bok choy, Romaine lettuce, and hakurei turnips will be transplanted soon.

We look forward to sharing the fall harvest with you!

Summer FUN has Just Begun

Globe Turnips 22May2023

 FUN loves the end of May to the beginning of June, when the last of the cool weather crops have been harvested and the titan tunnels (thanks to Gardeners’ Supply) are put in place at Bee happy Garden. FUN had a great spring harvest with lots of buttercrunch lettuce, leaf lettuce, spinach, kale, collards, hakurei turnips, bok choy, purple top white globe turnips, and green onions. We would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Johnny Selected Seeds, Botanical Interest, and Harris Seeds for their generous seed donations.

The tender summer crops are well established, FUN has already harvested pounds and pounds of squash and cucumbers. We have planted 5 varieties of squash, 5 varieties of tomatoes, 7 varieties of peppers, 3 varieties of cucumbers and 3 varieties of green beans - all of which are growing like gangbusters. Check out the progress in the pictures below. 

We look forward to wonderful summer season as we introduce you to vegetables new to the Bee Happy Garden.

Bee Happy Entrance 26June2023

Bee Happy Entrance 24May2023

A FUN Start to the Spring Season

Seedling under grow lights 13Feb2023

      From grow rack...

Plants in cold frame 22Mar2023

     to cold frame...

Lettuce 29Mar2023

     to garden....

FUN has a great start on the growing season. Lettuce, snow peas and sugar snap peas, were the first crops we planted, followed by kale, spinach, turnips, collards and onions. One of the tomato varieties has out-grown the grow rack and is happily living in the dining room – that’s what you get for starting seeds too soon because you are so excited to begin. Inside, peppers are growing strong, 5 varieties of squash are thriving under the grow lights and cucumbers are just starting to emerge. 

Peace Garden 30Maar2023

The fantastic gardeners at Peace Garden are off to a great start with carrots, lettuce, spinach, garlic, and cilantro....and that's just in one of the beds.

We are looking forward to a FUN and beautiful season!

Have a FUN 2023!

 From start…                                                 to finish...

Seedlings Feb. 2022

Harvest July 27, 2022

                 FUN had a fantastic year, harvesting 1242 pounds of produce in Bee Happy Garden, almost 3 gallons of honey from our apiary, and 293 pounds of food by our wonderful gardeners at Peace Garden.

We started our seedlings in February, placing our first transplants in the ground in early spring with a few beds of kale, spinach and peas. In May, we planted the tender summer seedlings - 4 varieties of tomatoes, 7 varieties of peppers, 5 varieties of squash, cucumbers, tomatillos, sweet potato slips, and sowed seeds for green beans. We added more herbs – cilantro, Italian basil, lemon basil, Thai basil, parsley, rosemary, mint and peppermint. We ended the year with a prolific planting in September, harvesting mustard greens, kale, collards, broccoli, Swiss chard, and turnips until the first week of December!

Mini Jack Pumpkins

Baby Butternuts

Broccoli

Turnips

Some things went well – our fall crops were phenomenal. Some things were a challenge – there were some very well-fed voles as they enjoyed our sweet potatoes, Baby Butternuts and Mini Jack pumpkins. You learn something new every season, make the best of it, and plan for the next year.

That’s what we are doing right now, planning for our next season. May your new year be bountiful, may you continue to grow, and may you always have FUN!