Final Harvest - Food is Where You Find It

The Rowe Community Garden was a fertile and productive resource all summer and kept growing good veggies right up until our big frost 3 days ago.

Just before the frost last week, several of us went down to continue harvesting kale, lettuce, broccoli and herbs.

 

 

 The bulldozer is coming soon to excavate the garden for the 20 parking spaces that the expanding rural health care clinic needs, so we are digging up as much of the rhubarb and asparagus as possible to transplant to other gardens.
The rhubarb has all been removed.
Now the asparagus gets our attention for transplanting.

Its easy.

Grab a shovel and dig.

 The roots are within 8-10inches from the surface of the soil and there is a 100 x 20 foot long row of asparagus that needs to find new homes, quickly.

30-40 clumps make a very nice asparagus bed.

Dig up an area for a asparagus bed, plant the clumps at the same depth they were previously, add soil and compost.... and Voila !  You have an asparagus bed!

 

Its all on a spur-of-the moment thing here.  Most people are thrilled to get free asparagus roots and just start digging a few trenches in their yards.  This is the best one I have seen so far.

It belongs to my friend, Mev, who has been canning veggies from the big community garden, my small garden and fruit that we have scavenged from abandoned fruit trees we have found in our travels. (Pears!)

She has boundless energy and is a darned good cook. She also spent hours down at the gardens weeding for the Food Shelf.

Here is a portion of the harvest that she has processed and shelved in her cellar.

She has given an equal amount away to kind friends and seniors who do not cook much.

This bonanza of food is fresh, home grown, organic and wickedly healthy and delicious.

                     She made the BEST tomato sauce from my tomatoes and spiced pears from an old homestead farm tree we found outside her surgeons office!!

Here she is doing a "shake down" of a 100 year old pear tree that no one knew was there until I saw it as I was driving to the parking lot.

 

She brought rope and a grappling hook to get the job done after her doctors appointment.

 

 We continued to return to this fruitful tree every week.

She also has a keen eye that can spot a choke cherry tree on the side of the road or in the woods.
Of course we have to stop and fill our bags so she can make choke cherry jam and other delicious concoctions.

Waste not, want not.

The toils of her hard labor.

And she makes her own wine too. (top shelf)

Whats your favorite thing that you canned this year ?
Have you scavenged for food lately?