On sale at the farm stand this week

Get your red and green cabbage, summer squash, Japanese and Italian eggplant, parsley, and kale!

Aaah....rain!

The back field has no way of being watered except by rain or by hand (like, with buckets of water). The conditions had been very dry on those two acres, but finally the rains came this weekend and re-energized the field! Things are looking good for the squash, cucumbers, eggplant and other vegetables for now.

187 years ago, Christopher Gore was having similar issues with his farm. On July 3, 1823, in a letter to his friend Rufus King, he wrote:

Strawberries & cherries are abundant & fine. Indian corn very
backward and unless we have rain soon, our potatoes will be few.
The last rain we had, of any quantity, was in May.

My Farm at Waltham in the news!

We've had three different articles about the Gore Place farm and gardens in the news just this week! Check them out:

Getting back to the garden at Gore Place in the Boston Globe

Farm journals chronicle activity at Gore Place in the 19th century in the MetroWest Daily News

Gore Place summer program combines work and fun in the MetroWest Daily News

On sale at the farm stand this week

Stop by the farm to get some Swiss chard, beets, scallions, kale, eggplant, summer squash and red, green and mini cabbages.

On the Farm at Gore Place (a new summer program for kids!!)

A week-long hands-on farm program for children 6-8 years old! You'll help out with animal chores, plant seeds & learn about the life cycle of plants, harvest & eat vegetables from the farm & gardens, explore modern & antique farm equipment, take a hayride tour of the grounds and more!

July 26 through 30, 9am-12pm

$135 Dual/Family members, $150 nonmembers

Space is limited to 10 children, reserve by July 19. To reserve, email the Gore Place Education Coordinator at tamar.agulian at goreplace.org.

Raised beds in the Boston Globe!

Check out this article in the Globe about the raised bed gardens at Gore Place.

The hidden farm at Gore Place

The "back field" is the area of land behind the animal enclosures, behind the trees. About 2 acres of it is farmed and this season it's been planted with cabbage, Pac choi, green beans, leeks, collard greens, eggplant, purple top turnips, five varieties of winter squash (Waltham butternut, Sibley, Pink banana, Delicata, and pumpkin), three varieties of summer squash (Raven, Soleil, and Bennings green tint), and two varieties of cucumber (Bush pickle and Marketmore 76).

Here's a peek of the back field as it looked on June 16:

On sale at the farm stand this week

Stop by the farm to get your fresh eggs, kale, pac choi, and bunching onions.

Eggs are in the red cooler

The immature onions are picked early and can be used like scallions

Pac Choi

Garlic scapes

As the garlic bulb grows, the stalk (or stem) of the plant grows and starts to curl. The garlic scape is the stalk of the garlic plant and, if harvested when still curly and tender, can be used in a number of recipes. If the scape is not cut off, the plant's food and energy is divided between it and the garlic bulb. Farmers will harvest the scape in order to direct all the nutrients toward the garlic bulb to help it grow.

Garlic scapes are now on sale at the Gore Place farm stand. Pick some up and try them out in your next meal!

Garlic scape

Three scapes

New raised beds!!

Four new raised beds are being installed in front of the carriage house at Gore Place. These new beds are a little different than the ones near the farm. They are 10 feet by 10 feet and planted in a four square pattern, which I will describe in a future post. The raised beds will be planted with a mix of medicinal, culinary, and ornamental plants.

Two of the new raised beds in front of the carriage house

oh, those pesky wabbits!

The plants Scott planted in the raised beds in April were all eaten up by rabbits. So he planted them again, and the rabbits feasted once more! To keep those pesky wabbits from striking again, Scott has had to place rabbit fences around the raised beds. They're working so far...

Rabbit fence around the mixed vegetables raised bed

Update on garlic plants

The garlic that was planted in October grew well during the winter and will be ready for harvesting in July. The tops of the garlic can be cut off in June and eaten.

Garlic field

Close-up of Garlic plants

New year, new season!

The raised bed gardens are back! Scott has prepared them for the new season and started planting. He also just planted cabbage, onions, and kale in the field north of the cottage.

Raised beds

Lettuce

Planting in the north of cottage field

Gleaning Gore Place

This summer and fall, crews from the Boston Area Gleaners came to Gore Place several times to harvest the crops and deliver them to area food pantries, meal programs, and homeless shelters.

From the field grown produce, crews picked approximately 10 boxes of green beans, 12 boxes of cabbage, 6 boxes of turnips, 12 boxes of sugar pumpkins, and 54 boxes of butternut squash. The squash boxes weighed 50 to 60 pounds, totaling well over two tons of produce for those in need! And from the garden, crews picked 6 boxes of beans, 15 boxes of collard greens, and 5 boxes of mustard greens.

All this produce from Gore Place was delivered to Rosie's Place in Boston, the Salvation Army food pantry and meal program in Waltham, the Red Cross Food Pantry and the Sandra's Lodge shelter in Waltham, and also to food pantries in Cambridge.

Picking butternut squash in early October

Garlic

Scott has started to plant garlic in the field north of the cottage. Not knowing which variety of garlic will perform well in our soil, he has selected three different varieties, all of which are reported to be very cold hardy and are of the hardneck type. Softneck varieties of garlic are the ones which are most commonly found in supermarkets. The hardneck varieties have a rigid stem, called a scape, that coils from the top of the garlic and has bulbils growing from it. Bulbils look like mini bulbs and can be cut off the top of the garlic and eaten or replanted.

The three varieties of garlic being planted are German Extra Hardy, Siberian, and Chrysalis Purple. A total of 65 pounds of seed garlic will be planted and if all goes well, we should have a total yield of 300-350 pounds of garlic around mid-July. The garlic will then go through a curing process of about 3 weeks.

North of Cottage field planted with garlic seed.
There will be four 100-foot rows of each garlic variety.