37,781 lbs. or 1,128 Bushels as of 10/28/12 We have had a busy few weeks harvesting thousands of pounds of peppers, carrots, winter squash, apples, turnips and greens! The night of October 12th was the first hard frost of the season, and earlier in the day we were able to pull together a last-minute crew of volunteers to bring in the last of the peppers (a hot crop). Since then we have transitioned to just the hearty crops of Fall: roots and greens. On the 13th we rounded up an ambitious and energetic crew of volunteers who harvested 2,000 lbs of carrots in an hour! We have had a steady run of apples, and though they are winding down, we harvested 1,080 lbs today at Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell. What a gift, all these fruits and veggies and all of the generous farmers and volunteers. Thank You! Food Day is a nationwide celebration and a movement toward more healthy, affordable, and sustainable food. Boston Area Gleaners is honored to be able to join this movement to address issues as varied as health and nutrition, hunger, agricultural policy, animal welfare, and farm worker justice. We had our first Food Day event on Oct 22nd, Monday morning, with the help from girls from the Binah School, to glean kale in Lincoln. 190 pounds out of 340 pounds of the kale gleaned were used by the Boston Public Health Commission in its Food Day 2012 event on Oct 24th. Organized by ABCD Headstart, the kale were on the menu for the Food Day. A portion of the greens were offered to families to take home as well. The Food Day 2012 event by ABCD Headstart turned out to be a great success! The Metro has published a great feature on the event. Let's encourage Boston to Eat our Greens more and more!Thank you for joining us on this campaign! Find out more: Boston, Take a Break from Beans, It's TIme to Eat Your Greens (Metro Boston) 29,170 lbs.as of 10/9/12
We braved the threat of a downpour this morning (which never came!) and headed out to Nicewicz Family Farm in Bolton again to glean the apple drops, which were bountiful and beautiful! The picking was swift, and in no time we harvested 840 lbs with a crew of 3! All of the apples will be distributed by Saturday, and we are already hoping for another trip there next week. 28,330 lbs.as of 10/8/12
Believe it or not, we are into October and still gleaning corn!! We harvested 1,680 lbs of corn this morning at Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell. Farmer Carl calls it his "gamble" planting. He plants his last couple of corn plantings in mid-July, with no irrigation, and hopes for the best - and he got it! Thanks to Carl and to the small, and mighty, crew of volunteers!
26,010 lbs. as of 10/2/12
We made our second trip of the week out to Nicewicz Family Farm in Bolton, where we gleaned 840 lbs of apples with 3 volunteers. Some of the apples were happily received by Waltham Fields Community Farm staff, who sold them at their subsidized market in Waltham this afternoon. The rest we will distribute to pantries later this week. These are the first of many apple gleaning trips to come this season! |
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