A Red & Green Delivery

Thank you to Pat for not only picking, but delivering, her excess carmine jewel cherries so that Grow 'N' Share could donate them this week! They are beautiful, large sour cherries that make your mouth pucker when you eat them fresh!

We also dropped off giant fordhook swiss chard to the Salvation Army today. If you're not familiar with eating chard, it tastes amazing sauteed with onions, garlic and dill!

Cherries & Rhubarb & Raspberries, Oh My!

A big thank you goes out to two homeowners this week: Marie for sharing her raspberries, rhubarb, shell peas and lettuce, and David for sharing his beautiful nanking cherries - we picked close to 37 pounds from just two bushes!

The large amounts of produce picked could not have been possible without countless volunteer hours - your help is greatly appreciated! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Tricia removes rhubarb leaves for composting.

Our junior volunteer picks a bucket of shell peas.

Tricia, Amber and Amanda busy picking in the raspberry patch.

Nanking cherry packages ready for drop off at the Salvation Army.

On Harvesting Rhubarb

Manitoba Fruit Share wrote a wonderful little post about how best to pick rhubarb, and here is an excerpt:

• pick from the outside in
• slide your hand to the base of the stalk and pull gently
• if pulling does not work, carefully cut the stalks as close to the ground as possible
• leave 1/3 of the stalks on the plant so it can continue to grow and thrive during the summer – NEVER pick all of the stalks from a rhubarb plant
• if you cut the leaves off the stalks at the picking location, ask the homeowner permission to put the leaves in their compost pile or take the leaves with you to compost at home or at another compost pile
• it is safe to compost rhubarb leaves, but never eat them

If you take care to harvest rhubarb properly, you will be rewarded with good plant growth and another harvest in a few weeks time!

Rhubarb Harvest Share

We were excited when we got the call this week to pick some unwanted rhubarb just south of Yorkton! A big thank you goes out to Elva for sharing her excess rhubarb with us - and to her grandchildren for helping us pick - we harvested 37.5 pounds in all!!

The Salvation Army was very pleased to receive the donation, and we were thrilled to make the drop off. We hope that with ongoing fruit tree registrations, there will soon be more to follow!

Grow 'n' Share in the News!

A big thank you to Calvin Daniels for helping spread the word about fruit sharing in Yorkton This Week. To read the article, click here. We are currently accepting fruit tree registrations - to register your fruit tree for picking, please call 782-0952!

Tree Scouting Walk

Over the next few weeks, volunteers of Grow 'n' Share may be knocking on your door or leaving this flyer in your mail box:

We'll be looking to register fruit bearing trees or shrubs that owners are not fully utilizing, but would like to have picked. If you receive this flyer and have questions (and we hope you do!), please do not hesitate to call us: 782-0952 (Shanon) or email: shanon (at) nexxus (dot) cc.

Tree Canada Grant

The Community Garden Alliance was awarded funding from Tree Canada to purchase fruit trees and berry bushes to be planted on the property of the Yorkton Alliance Church. Eventually, as these trees mature and bear fruit, they will fall under the responsibility of the Grow 'n' Share program to harvest and distribute!

Volunteers worked hard Saturday, May 12th planting crab, apple, plum, pear, cherry, saskatoons and haskaps! We look forward to the bounty! Thank you Tree Canada and to everyone who helped with this project!