Fall Harvest Events

After the first snow of the season fell yesterday afternoon, it's really becoming transition time in the gardens as we tuck our cold-hardy greens in from the cold and harvest all the remaining summer crops that we can. The tomatoes have been very impressive, as they continued to ripen this week despite a few frosts and some crazy wind. Maybe our efforts at the work party last weekend to sucker and top off the plants so they could focus on ripening their remaining fruit paid off! New seedlings in Parsons and the Presidential Garden are looking good, and our transplanted greens are coming along as well. Kale, chard, and other greens from the spring and summer are still going strong! We've also still got some beets and carrots ready for harvest. Even our peppers have continued to grow through the colder weather.

 We've had a lot going on in the past few weeks in addition to our usual work parties. The Organic Valley Generation Organic young farmers tour came by on the 12th to spread the word about organic farming, and we had a great time meeting young farmers from around the country and showing them the gardens! In addition to the Sukkot dinner with the JRC, we've collaborated with Koreans of Williams and VISTA on some multi-cultural harvest celebrations. Last Friday (the 15th) WSG hosted a Williams After Dark event, where KOW made a delicious soup with our napa cabbage and over 50 students came to make and eat salsa (our tomatoes, peppers and tomatillos supplemented with Mighty Food tomatoes and onions and Peace Valley tomatillos) and pesto (we have so much basil!) Thanks to Dining Services for sharing kitchen utensils and gelato with us! Everyone also had fun painting ceramic pots to plant with herbs for their windowsills. Then last night, WSG and VISTA co-hosted a Harvest Dinner at the Log for both students and faculty! We had a great time cooking (and cleaning) together, and served more delicious salsas with our tomatoes, tomatillos, and peppers, as well as kale, chard, and more cabbage from the garden to supplement the yummy frijoles, picadillo, y arroz con leche (with local apples!)

As we prepare for the increasingly colder temperatures, we'll be saying goodbye to our tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, but also planting garlic and maybe even more cold-hardy greens. We're also hoping that more people will get involved with covering and uncovering the hoop tunnels as the weather varies--nothing like your very own bed of greens to tuck in at night!

Some pictures from our Williams After Dark "Celebrating the Harvest" event:

Miso Napa Cabbage Soup

sampling the soup..

our tomatoes for salsa!

decorating pots

salsa making

pesto!

making and eating pesto

chopping tomatoes for salsa

peppers and tomatillos from the garden

October update- work parties, presidential garden opening ceremony, and more!

Since the last blog post so many things have happened in the gardens! We've had a few near frosts but nothing that our row covers haven't been able to handle. We're hoping the tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos will keep thriving at least until the end of this week when we'll be making salsa, and most everything else we have growing is happier in the cold. We had two more successful work parties where we planted the new beds and built hoop tunnels in all three gardens and ate delicious lunches. We also celebrated the harvest and Sukkot by sharing garden produce at Shabbat dinner on the 24th. We've been harvesting salad greens every Wednesday morning for Mission Dining Hall and harvesting herbs and various veggies for Log Lunch on Friday.
The other big excitement of the past few weeks was the opening ceremony of the Presidential Garden, which was held on the morning of The Place of Taste Symposium on Food, Culture, and Community. It was a beautiful morning and we had a fantastic turnout of adults in the community and especially the symposium speakers, many of whom happily wore WSG buttons gave us shout-outs in their talks! We're so grateful that the Falk family is sharing their backyard with us- it's such a great way to connect the campus and demonstrate the value of growing food in a sustainable way. Here are some pictures from the last few weeks: 

Salad from work party lunch!

Putting up hoops in Parsons

Planting the new beds in Parsons with cold-hardy greens

We're still harvesting tomatoes!

Work party lunch

Professor Goldstein speaking at the Presidential Garden opening ceremony

President Falk at opening ceremony

Michelle sang her wonderful planting song again!

The ribbon cutting- Karen Falk did the honors

Some of the VIPS... Bill Yosses- the pastry chef at the White House, Mitchell Davis- cookbook author, food journalist, and food studies scholar who moderated one of the panels on taste, and John Moresi and Jimmy Guiden from Mission catering

Transplanting in the presidential garden

Heritage wheat! Unfortunately since this picture was taken something nibbled down many of the plants...

More transplanting!

For more pictures of the opening ceremony, check out the Zilkha Center facebook page!