Let’s Get Growing!

2013 Patriots' Day LexFarm marchersIf there were ever any doubt that LexFarm is a fun group, you only had to see us with our giant vegetables in the Patriot’s Day parade yesterday…
In addition to winning 3rd place in the Civic category, we also handed out hundreds of organic seed packets to children from “Seeds of Change“: let’s get those gardens growing! Are you someone who found this website after seeing us in the parade?

 

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2013 walking peapd

Plant a Meal at the Market

Join us today at the Lexington Farmers’ Market and plant a meal!

Container GardenLexFarm is sponsoring a community growing project at the Lexington Farmers’ Market on June 19 to promote vegetable growing, healthy-eating habits, and farm-based education. Plant a Meal encourages people to grow a small pot of vegetables to enjoy with their family, friends, or neighbors. Participants should BYOC— Bring Your Own Container—and LexFarm will supply the planting medium, three-seed mixes, and guidance. There will be different types of seed mixes with which growers can experiment: herbs, mixed greens, and salad.

If you don’t have time to plant a container, please stop by and learn about how you can participate in the Blue Ribbon Contests at the Lexington 300th Anniversary Country Fair in September!

Thanks to Daisies

Daisy Girl Scouts help outWe had some great help from Daisy Girl Scout Troop 65197 with some important spring work at LexFarm’s goat yard yesterday. Under the direction of Farmer Charlie, they raked out, mixed up, turned over and shoveled all the compost (including wonderful, rich goat manure) that had been collected over the last several months. Pretty soon, we’ll be able to use the compost to enrich some soil to plant goat forage. After their hard work, the troop enjoyed some time with Ionia and the rest of the herd.

If you would like to bring your group to LexFarm’s goat yard, just to visit, or to help with a service project, please visit our “Group Visits” page.

Visiting my compost

Watching kitchen scraps turn slowly into compost for fertilizing our garden is–truth be told–the best part of gardening. I have four home made trashcan-composters tucked next to our garage, and I love to check on how they are doing.  Once in a while I tip them over, turn over their contents to mix in some fresh air, and then fill them up again adding some more carbon– last year’s leaves, torn corrugated cardboard, news print, reused paper bags.

This spring I re-drilled the ga-zillion holes I’d made years ago in the cans to make them larger.  The holes are now 1 1/4″ so I hope the air circulation will be much better and the stuff less likely to get stinky.

Now I want to see if the compost can attract more earthworms. I might try setting the cans a few inches into the ground and hope that some worms will meander over, start digesting  food scraps and leave behind their famous “garden gold.”  I can dream.

cover of fine gardeningIf you haven’t started a compost area in your yard, patio, balcony, or in your house, there are many resources on the Web to help you.  I took the idea of drilling holes in inexpensive trash cans from a suggestion printed  in Fine Gardening, the beautiful magazine published here in Massachusetts.  I don’t have the exact reference, but I recommend the magazine as a great resource.