Gleaning Log, October 18, 2013

Hello Gleaners!

What an incredible week for gleaning!

Our van was full all three of the gleaning trips that we have been on this week, and I hope to fill it again tomorrow (Saturday, October 19) with apples at Kimball Fruit Farm in Pepperell. Sometimes, a full van means that geometrically we cannot fit any more cases of food, and sometimes it means that we cannot load any more weight into the van because of its load capacity. These are just a few examples of the constraints that we experience as an organization, and why sometimes we are not able to glean everything we possibly can from the fields.  However, we did acquire a rented storage container to keep at our office in Waltham, so now we will not have to worry about where to store the produce between trips and deliveries!

Nevertheless, a full van is still a lot of food to donate! On this past Sunday’s trip, we took away a full van of organic turnips (1500 pounds, 33 cases) from Hutchins Farm in Concord. We have been delivering these turnips over the course of the week and will continue to do so over the next week or so (thanks to our new storage unit!). On Monday, October 14, a volunteer was able to borrow his friend’s small pickup truck, and we were able to take away more than our normal capacity of food from Dick’s Market Garden in Lunenburg; we harvested and collected 1320 pounds of apples, 600 pounds of Spaghetti squash, and 425 pounds of Blue Hubbard squash (2345 pounds in 62 cases total).  And today, we harvested 864 pounds of various cooking greens in 63 cases at Siena Farms in Sudbury.

Of course, we couldn’t do any of this without our incredible volunteers, so we thank you, yet again! And we ask you to keep up the good work! We will be going out to harvest (hopefully) a full van of apples tomorrow, kale and cabbage on Sunday in Lincoln, and more greens towards the end of this next week. But, we are possibly going to have our first real frost early next week, so fingers crossed that those hearty greens stay hearty through a frost! 

On that note, I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend; enjoy this beautiful song by emancipator that will hopefully ease us all into the cold, cold winter.

To the Harvest!

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