So far, the story of this gleaning season has been greens, greens, and more greens (with some radishes and salad turnips as well), including lettuce, baby kale, tat soi, bok choy, mustard greens, and arugula.
This is very typical for the early gleaning season, as greens and radishes/turnips are the first crops that ripen in the summer, and farmers often plant many successive plantings of these quick-to-ripen crops so that they can be sure to have produce for their CSA’s, markets, and farmstands. Often times with these succession plantings, there will be more crops ripe in the field at one time than farmers can sell, which is when they call on the gleaners to come and harvest for donation!
The farms that have donated these crops include Appleton Farms CSA in Ipswich, Hutchins Farm in Concord, Alprilla Farm in Essex, First Light Farm CSA in Hamilton, and Stearns Farm CSA in Framingham (a new partner farm!). Including some storage gleaning we did over the winter and some post-CSA surplus pickups from farms nearby to our office, we have gleaned over 9,300 pounds of produce so far in 2015.
To the Harvest!
Matt Crawford
Lead Gleaning Coordinator
This is very typical for the early gleaning season, as greens and radishes/turnips are the first crops that ripen in the summer, and farmers often plant many successive plantings of these quick-to-ripen crops so that they can be sure to have produce for their CSA’s, markets, and farmstands. Often times with these succession plantings, there will be more crops ripe in the field at one time than farmers can sell, which is when they call on the gleaners to come and harvest for donation!
The farms that have donated these crops include Appleton Farms CSA in Ipswich, Hutchins Farm in Concord, Alprilla Farm in Essex, First Light Farm CSA in Hamilton, and Stearns Farm CSA in Framingham (a new partner farm!). Including some storage gleaning we did over the winter and some post-CSA surplus pickups from farms nearby to our office, we have gleaned over 9,300 pounds of produce so far in 2015.
To the Harvest!
Matt Crawford
Lead Gleaning Coordinator