Neighborhood Garden

In an empty lot a few streets down from us is a thriving, large garden that 20 families in our neighborhood planted, weeded and harvested fresh produce from weekly. This year our family joined the neighborhood garden and it has been wonderful. People keep saying that it has been an off-year for yield, but our family has enjoyed so much food I don't know how we could have eaten more. In late spring, the families gathered for planting. I missed it because Kate was sick, but Greg helped. It was quite a project because the ground was so hard. Greg said it was like pick axing concrete. They finally got everything planted and ready to go. Greg also helped install and update the watering system. Every family was assigned a row to weed and hoe out the watering trenches. Our row included beans, peppers and basil. It didn't require to much work to keep the weeds down. We also watered twice this summer.
The garden produces, corn, red potatoes, beans, peppers, basil, cucumbers, yellow squash, zucchini, tomatoes, spaghetti squash, butternut squash, pumpkins, cantaloupe and watermelon. WOW! Everything is so delicious. The kids particularly enjoyed the corn on the cob and I loved it all. It has kept me busy canning and freezing all the harvest. I have canned 21 quarts of tomatoes and 14 pints of bread and butter pickles. I also froze 6 dozen ears of corn (cut off the cob), 24 cups of green beans and 3 batches of pesto. I have used zucchini is every way I can think (steamed with various herbs and sauces), raw with ranch, roasted, cheese zucchini, zucchini quiche, zucchini bread and chocolate zucchini cake. I still have two sitting on my counter, so I'm open for any more ideas. Our family had loved the garden, we have learned a lot about gardening and want to give a huge thanks to the Poulsens for organizing it and keeping it going every year. It has been wonderful.