Goff Organic Garden
Organic Garden

Goff Organic Garden grows a wide variety of fresh vegetables, herbs and flowers in 11 growing areas: nine vegetable beds, each 1000 square feet; 14 raised-bed boxes of cut flowers; and an herb garden.

Each large vegetable area grows a different family of vegetables, and crops are ready to harvest at different times of the year. This crop diversity assures continuous harvest throughout the summer into fall. Our season begins with spinach in late spring, ends with pumpkins and Indian corn in the fall.

Something in the garden is always ready to harvest.

Our first two crops ready to harvest are radishes and spinach, beginning in June. Each crop requires a different strategy and technique to remove it from the soil and package it for sale.

When is a crop is ripe and ready to harvest, students form teams to gather, wash and package the produce. Each team takes on one chore in the harvest operation. Mst generally, some students remove plants from the beds. Other students wash and clean them. A third team weighs, bags and boxes.

Here, a student is gently lifting spinach from a bed. Next, she will cut away roots and soil from the leafy crown. Then it goes to metal tubs in the background.

A second harvest team rinses and washes the produce to remove dirt and insects. On a hot day, this is a popular job.

Students triple wash each vegetable by dumping it in a succession of three tubs of water. Each rinse cleanes the vegetables slightly more, until they are ready to be packed.

In 2007, we expect to build a wash & rinse area behind the barn, and bring all the harvested vegetables there.

Currently, a picnic table serves as our moveable work station to weigh & bag produce. Precise cleaning and packing varies with each type of crop.

To pack harvested leafy vegetables, students at the picnic table take clean vegetables and place a clean, wet paper towel on the root ball. The greens are then put in plastic bags.

As the photo below shows, getting our giant spinach leaves in small bags isn't always easy.

After rinsing, leafy and root vegetables in clear plastic bags are put in cardboard boxes to protect them from the hot sunshine and prepare them for delivery.

As in the photo below, root vegetables such as carrots and beets are weighed and bagged.

Plastic bags are then packed in cardboard boxes. Vegetables are either sold at the morning farmer's market, or donated to a food pantry that day. On occasion, unsold vegetables are stored overnight in the school's walk-in cooler.

On the left, a student weighs individual bags of carrots that are donated to the food pantry. Our electronic scale is solar-powered by two PV panels on our barn.

We found that just giving the food pantry one large 50-pound bag created more work at the food pantry. So now, we individually package the vegetables, so each family can take a bag. This also allows students use their math skills while they weigh each package of vegetables.

On the right, a box of romaine lettuce is harvested and packaged, ready to be shipped off to the food pantry.

Below are individually packaged bags of carrots about to be weighed and sent off to the food pantry.