Bee Happy Garden May 19, 2025 |
Romaine, leaf lettuce, kale, and turnips in the background |
Green onions |
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Turnips |
..........FUN Feeding the Community
Bee Happy Garden May 19, 2025 |
Romaine, leaf lettuce, kale, and turnips in the background |
Green onions |
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Turnips |
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.
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
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!
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Buttercrunch and Romaine April 4th |
FUN had a fantastic time planting and harvesting turnips, bok choy, green onions, romaine, buttercrunch, leaf lettuce, spinach and kale.
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Buttercrunch May 7th |
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Romaine May 7th |
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Spinach May 22nd |
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Green Onions May 22nd |
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!
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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.
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Hakurei and globe top turnips |
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Black seeded simpson and leaf lettuce |
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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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!
Globe Turnips 22May2023 |
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
Seedling under grow lights 13Feb2023
From grow rack...
Plants in cold frame 22Mar2023
to cold frame...
Lettuce 29Mar2023
to garden....
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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.
This year marks a bittersweet turning point for FUN. It's our final season growing on the front lawn of First Christian Church of Falls ...