Above: Volunteers for a garden in the Pine Hill Road neighborhood share their success at the end of it’s 5th season supporting the community. (edited from contributed image)
[Editor’s Note: The following post was contributed by Al Hamilton on behalf of the Pine Hill Meadow Gardens volunteers.]
The first snow has fallen and the Pine Hill Meadow Garden is resting as are the many volunteers who made this season a great success. But be assured that there is still activity underway, tractors to repair, equipment to acquire, and seed catalogs to peruse over the coming few months. First, we want to celebrate a very successful 2024 season.
In this, our fifth year, we barreled through our 2022 harvest record of 3,011 lbs with a grand total of 5,388 lbs. of fresh produce delivered to local food pantries and shelters! This bounty was the result of three factors. First, we opened a new field on the meadow and grew sweet corn, with a harvest of over 1,300 ears and a total of 1,100 lbs. Surprisingly, the second factor was that we were aided by a drought. From August through October, we only received 5 inches of rain. Normally, this would be a problem but less rain means less, or in some instances, delayed diseases of the kind that particularly effect squashes, cucumbers, and tomatoes such as blights and mildews. By comparison, in 2023, a very wet garden season, we battled tomato blights all summer and lost a good deal of our squash to powdery mildew by early August. The solar powered well we installed last year got a work out. This year we were able to effectively employ a combination of drip irrigation and sprinklers to water the vegies without watering the weeds. Speaking of weeds, the “new” 1949 Farmall Cub with cultivators, together with a more enhanced use of biodegradable mulch, did a great job of cutting down on the weeding of many rows.
With the additional bounty we were able to add a 5th stop in our food pantry deliveries. We now deliver to the South Worcester Neighborhood Center, Southborough Food Pantry, Southborough Free Fridge, the Central Massachusetts Veterans Shelter, and the Marlborough Food Pantry. Garden-fresh vegetables are some of the hardest things to come by for organizations that service people who are food insecure and are very appreciated by these organizations. We will let 2 of them the speak for themselves:
“We look forward to the garden’s weekly visit. It means so much to people who come here because of the special things you do. The fresh produce helps put us over the top. Fresh produce is hard to get a hold of and provides great nutritional value.” Tom L’Ecuyer, Executive Director, South Worcester Neighborhood Center
“We see the produce from Pine Hill Meadow Garden comes with love to the veterans and all of our new friends. Getting produce, unprocessed, fresh from the farm you get the nutrition our clients need. Eating local produce is best for their health.” Willy LeClair Central Massachusetts Veterans Shelter., Worcester Ma.
This year saw us experiment with “culturally relevant vegetables”. Not every family that experiences food insecurity is familiar with the same set of vegetables. This year we tried a number of new vegies. We had great success with Jilo, an eggplant variety that is used in Brazilian and Nigerian cuisine, Magda Zucchini a middle easter summer squash, and Collards. Less successful were watermelon radishes and parsnips.
We could not have achieved all of this without the help of the community. In particular we want to recognize the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts who did great service on a number of occasions, students from Algonquin and Trottier who helped in the spring and late summer and fall. Of course, no acknowledgement would be complete without recognizing the dedicated volunteers in the neighborhood who are there every week rain or shine. Two other organizations should be recognized. Rivers Edge Garden center annually provides us with eggplant seedlings and gives us excess seedlings at the end of the season. Stearns Farm CSA and their farmer Ember Fleming have been advising us and also providing any excess harvest they might have. This year they donated over 1,000 lbs of produce (above and beyond our 5,388 lbs)
Topping 2024 in 2025 will be a tall order but we are up for it. The seed catalogs have started to arrive and we are starting to plan what we will plant and where. Plans are underway acquire a mulch layer and disk harrow. We plan expand on our experiments with new vegetable including Okra. If you would like to volunteer, we are always in need of help. Please contact dwainrib@gmail.com. You can follow us on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/groups/1176862456161942.
It takes several thousand dollars to operate the garden each year, if you would like to contribute financially you can contribute to: The Pine Hill Meadow Trust, Inc, c/o K. Cook, 11 Graystone Way, Southborough, Ma. 01772. The Pine Hill Meadow Trust is a 501 c3 not for profit organization and your contribution is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
