Bikers turning onto Stoddart Avenue |
Yay Bikes! is a non-profit that promotes bicycling for alternative transportation in Central Ohio. (I probably should have mentioned while they were here that I bike quite a bit in Bexley, which is an extremely bike-friendly community. I’m the old lady with a basket on her bike that rides to the Library and Kroger’s and am a regular fixture on the Alum Creek Trail. SACG Gardener Charlie is also an avid biker and volunteers at the Bike Co-Op on 5th Avenue).
Cathy
and I were busy baking yesterday. She
was much busier than me because she was baking hundreds of cupcakes for a
wedding near Canton today. She used the strawberries
we picked in June at Hann’s Farm and makes her own frosting from
scratch. She also has all the proper
tools and the neatest looking cupcake storage containers you’ve ever seen. You’d think she was a professional baker, or
something. My cupcakes and muffins
definitely look homemade. I made the beet
red velvet chocolate cupcakes I’ve blogged about before and Martha Stewart’s
chocolate zucchini muffins (which taste better than they sound). I used less butter than Martha, but I don’t
think I baked them long enough because they all fell flat after being removed
from the oven. One of these days . . .
Before
coming to the Garden I had to stop by the bank to get change for the bake
sale. When I arrived, Sabrina was
already at the SACG weeding her own plot and she helped me to unload my car and
get set up. She harvested quite a few
cucumbers, which she plans to pickle. I
then turned to weeding and weeding and weeding and pruning the back rose
bushes. By 10:30, the bikers still had not arrived, so Sabrina bid me adieu and
I started harvesting green beans.
While I was picking my pole beans, I came
across a praying mantis. I had seen him
in a different part of my plot a few days ago.
Then, I initially focused on his eyes and almost killed him in mistaking
him for a grasshopper. When I realized
what he was, I sent him on his way.
Today, he was in my pole beans and he stayed put while I found my camera
and took some pictures. We love
mantises because they eat pesky bugs that eat our vegetables before we do. This is the first mantis I have seen at the
SACG and I hope that s/he lays lots and lots of eggs.
The bikers
were due around 11:15 and I kept looking down Main Street wondering where they
were. They finally showed up around 11:45. I thought that the organizers might be
offended by our bake sale, but they were thrilled. The beets and zucchini used in our baked goods
had been raised at the SACG. The
strawberries were from a local farm that we visited as a SACG field trip.
Everyone (who had been biking since 9 am) was
hungry and glad to have free water to refill their bottles. I had been told to expect about 30 riders, but
I think there were more than that. They
had been allocated 15 minutes at each garden, so I let them wonder around, answered
questions and sold cupcakes. I could
have told stories all morning, but I knew that Richard (at the next garden, Growing
Hearts and Hands on Oak Street) had to be wondering where they were. So, I waved farewell as their peloton biked
down Stoddart Avenue’s brick pavement.
Neal
had arrived during the hubbabaloo. We discussed a few of his questions about next steps with his plot and then turned
to harvesting and pulling dead squash plants out of the Garden. Seeing that no
one dropped dead from eating our cupcakes, some neighbors also stopped by to buy
some. I sold them to the kids at
half-price (because I have no backbone). I picked almost 30 pounds of food for the
food pantry. By now, it was getting late
and I had to kick the kids out so that I could work. As it was, I didn’t leave the Garden until after 2 and
made it to the food pantry about 20 minutes before it closed for the weekend. They kept commenting on all the tomatoes –
particularly the beefstakes.
Bikers leaving down Stoddart Ave |
Next
week, we’ll be focusing on harvesting potatoes and planting our Fall season
crops. Be there or be square.
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