Spring planting brings Sukkot harvesting

Spring flowers have emerged from the earth and the cherry trees and magnolias are bursting with blossoms. Here at Or Shalom our garden is waking up, too. This month the Garden Committee rebuilt some crumbling raised beds and worked in fresh soil to ready the beds for planting on Earth Day, Sunday, April 22.

Click here to sign up to water our beds.

Photo courtesy Amy G via flickr

The seeds that are ready to snuggle into the dirt were specially selected to coincide with an early autumn harvest and the first night of Sukkot in late September when the community will be invited to a feast for the harvest festival. Soon you will see seedlings peeking out from the earth, including:

potatoes, radish, carrots, parsnips, broad (Fava) beans, oregano, sage, thyme, lavender, basil, sunflowers, wildflowers

The Garden Committee thoughtfully included vegetables with Jewish cultural significance and that, as shared culinary staples, bridge Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions; aromatic herbs for havdalah; and flowers to encourage pollinators and beneficial insects to visit.

Call for garden volunteers

To keep everything happy and healthy and ensure a good harvest, the garden will need to be watered three times a week during the summer. Or Shalom needs volunteers to share in the watering from June 17 to August 26. This can be an individual activity or a family outing, and a great way to see the flowers and vegetables grow!

The watering needs to be done three times a week (unless it rains) and we are asking each volunteering family or member to take responsibility for watering three times in one week for these weeks:

• June 17
• June 24
• July 1
• July 8
• July 15
• July 22
• July 29
• August 5
• August 12
• August 19
• August 26

Please sign up for a slot via our watering registration form.

Save the date

This sustenance-rich garden project will culminate in an intergenerational event on Erev Sukkot on Sunday, Sept. 23. On that day we will build our sukkah, cover it with greenery from our yard and the yards of community members, create decorations from recyclables, cook from our garden harvest, and share a communal meal in Or Shalom’s sukkah. Save the date and why not take a moment to pause and watch our garden grow over the coming months!