Robbins Farm Garden

A Cooperative Learning Project

Elisabeth

Planting Swiss Chard is easy!

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Swiss Chard seeds

Swiss chard seeds were planted in the garden today. Like the other cold-tolerant crops (peas, kale, lettuce and the cabbage family) they could have gone in a few weeks sooner. The wonderful thing about planting swiss chard is the big seeds (almost the size of peas and far less smooth, they’re among the few seeds you can plant in a stiff breeze).

 
We’ve planted Bright Lights, a variety with a colorful mix of red, white, pink and yellow plants. There’s only room for 3 rows in the 6-foot wide bed, which the swiss chard shares with the other leafy biennials (collards and kale).

 

Earth Day Eve planting

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The seed kitWe gathered for our first evening gardening assignation, nice temperature, post- and pre-rain so a perfect window. We put in the beautiful seedlings from Waltham Fields Community Farm, lettuces and kale and cauliflgroup lettuceower and broccoli, and we planted peas from seed, both bush- and pole-types. Waltham Fields' finestIt was a busy plot! And everyone had something to do. Digging a little deeper Alan at one with brassicasthan the rototiller had gone, we even had another major boulder for young Desmond to roll away. Lisa had fortuitously assigned herself the water-bearing so we had some moisture to give the seeds and seedlings; thank heavens she hadn’t recycled those plastic bottles, clever girl. A few more sympathetic visitors came by with good wishes. By the time light was vanishing we had everything in and could part hoping the rain would come on Earth Day (which it did, with noise and fury).

A Productive Rainy-Day Outing

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The weather having prevented a pea-planting Saturday, a number of us instead took the opportunity to visit Waltham Fields Community Farm for their first seedling sale. Besides the crops we won’t be starting from seeds at all, like tomatoes and peppers, there are cool-weather crops we knew we could get in seedlings from our Waltham colleagues or other sources to give the garden an early start. Some of these are items we’ll also plant from seed in a few weeks, letting new generations of plants succeed the first (succession planting). 

On the way to Waltham we took a delightful sidetrip to Belmont Victory Gardens, a real surprise to most of us. The plots are large and fenced, and many are well-established; some had made use of storm windows to create greenhouses in situ. Garlic was in evidence on many plots, and flowers here and there had us dreaming of a spring Robbins Farm Garden with welcoming color.

The midday at Waltham included sitting in on a bit of Arlington resident and Robbins Farm friend Russ Cohen‘s "Edible Wild Plants" presentation, accompanied by splendid treats, including pie made with Japanese knotweed! His culinary abilities with invasives are outstanding. We cut the viewing short to attend the seedling sale and were very impressed with the offerings. We came away with ten 6-packs, of various lettuces, cabbage, broccoli, kale and cauliflower. All but the lettuces are ground-ready (the lettuces need a few more days indoors), and our plan at the moment is to convene Wednesday evening to put our first plants in the Robbins ground.