(To read the older posts in this blog, click here.)
Mostly photographs today, but the topic is super relevant: gardening, orcharding, beekeeping, harvesting, cooking and preserving of local food in community. From the archives. I hope you’ll be inspired!
I want to start with the most recent photo (left). A friend grew the Concord grapes in her Wayland garden, she and another friend got together and made jelly and canned it – as well as hot peppers and tomato jam (from Siena Farms). Though there wasn’t much, Andrea insisted I take a jar of the jelly for our Omnivore’s Delight. We’re going to have this super-local treat with homemade local wheat bread and local butter for breakfast tomorrow.
When his Wayland apple tree is weighed down with fruits, the owner lets us know and a bunch of us go and harvest the fruits. Then we sauce and preserve it together.
The BEElieve extractor gets a lot of use: during honey season it goes from house to house, or beekeepers get together for a finger-licking honey party!
A Transition Waylander “garden party” at the Hannah Williams Playground.
A spin around the communal Transition Wayland Community Garden Plot demonstrated that the home made “dibble wheel” needed some more engineering.
A public hive opening for BEElievers
The volunteer orchardist gives us a tour of the orchard in the Heard Farm Conservation area.
Every school in Wayland has a veggie garden in the making or well under way. Teachers and students, volunteers, PTO’s, and the Wayland Green Team establish these gardens and maintain them. If you want to help, contact info@watlandgreenteam.org.
Preparing the Transition Wayland Community Garden Plot. The plot’s rich raised beds are shared by several gardener. People weed, harvest and move horse manure together.
Then there was that time when we made a group purchase of 200 lbs of peaches and five of us canned them together.
The local farmers love our group purchases and always take the time out to chat.
Wayland kindergartners get their hands in that good dirt at the Hannah Williams Playground garden.
At community canning parties people learn to can and make new friends. And then there is the peach butter, blueberry jam…
