Volunteer Work Bee Wrap-Up 2023

On October 14 we celebrated our volunteers with some delicious ground cherries and some corn silk tea made over the fire! They were much more active than the sleepy bees pictured here, slurping up the last of this asters’ nectar between naps! Can you find all 12 bees?

We had twelve intrepid participants who came from Tyendinaga and from nearby settler communities of Belleville and Kingston to help out. This has been about the average number of participants through the year, although our spring work bees definitely attracted the largest numbers, and included whole families from babies to elders! This work bee also had all life stages present from youth (12 yrs old) to her grandmother. We try our best to have volunteer tasks for all abilities – there is always so much to do! This time we cleared out and burned European buckthorn, pulled all the ornamental annuals from the containers, and weeded the biennial crops that will stay in the ground over winter. Nyawen:kowa volunteers! Hope to see you all again next year!

Harvest 2023

We have just brought in the last of the peppers, not all of which will ripen for seed. Most importantly, the corn is in, drying down under cover. This year, we grew the Oronya Nikanenstoten, which has been grown in the community by at least one grower for many years. It is a beauty! Many other crops were very successful in the dry fall we experienced this year: beans dried down perfectly on their stalks, lettuces had lots of time to produce seed, and our carrot, leek and beet seeds all came in perfectly ripe and dry. We grew the Buffalo Creek squash for the first time using seed from one of our Board members, and it seems happy. We were able to share tomatoes and ground cherries with the community Good Food box program and still got lots of seeds as well!

This Saturday October 14, weather permitting, will be our final volunteer workbee, from 10-noon in the gardens. Hope you can join us – we will have the fire going this time and enjoy some corn silk tea together. If it is raining, this event will be cancelled, so please check!

-Cate