Merchantville has a Community Garden at the Community Center and from time to time, there are garden plots available.  Merchantville's Community Garden is a single piece of land located behind the baseball field at the Community Center. It is gardened and maintained collectively by a group of residents and students. Our community gardens utilizes either individual plots on this public land to produce fruit, vegetables, and plants for food and food sharing. Please contact Kris Donohue at kdonohue202@gmail if you are interested in having a sunny plot in this garden next year.

And so it starts! Well, it started with the eggs but I can never see them so here are some pictures of my milkweed plants, pods and caterpillars. I have about 75 plants and will offer the seed pods to anyone interested when they have finished growing. Awareness is rising around the importance of milkweed (as well as other native plants) for pollinators, because the fact is, planting the right species of milkweed for your area can be a huge help to monarchs and a number of other species. Milkweed is a beneficial wildflower. Planting milkweed is a sure way to help save the monarch. With completion of the status assessment in December 2020, the Fish and Wildlife Service will determine whether protecting the monarch under the Endangered Species Act is warranted. 

Come and get em! Zucchini, hot peppers, cucumbers, beans, squash, kale, turnips and tomatoes are available for free at Eclipse Brewing. At Incredible Edible Merchantville we love connecting people through food and food sharing. Although we're just getting our feet wet, there are many businesses in our community who are already doing extraordinary things. For some it’s about creating a garden, for others supporting food waste and food injustice. For some it’s about teaching people to grow and cook and for others it’s about ensuring people have that space to grow. For us all it’s about making sure our whole community can get involved. Eclipse Brewing and Park Place Cafe & Restaurant are business leaders in planting crops for food sharing and connecting to nature through locally foraged foods.

Yesterday morning we were able to harvest our first beans from the IE site at Wellwood Park tennis courts. Our first pick of the season yielded about 60 mature Provider green beans and 1 Golden Rocky bean. We hope our Red Silk beans - which need 85 days to mature - will recover from all the rain, begin to flower and bear beautiful red beans! You can store unwashed fresh beans in a reusable container or plastic bag in the refrigerator crisper where they should keep for about seven days. Green beans can also retain valuable amounts of nutrients for 3-6 months after freezing, so if you choose the freezing option, rinse them in cool water, drain, cut to your desired size, then place them in freezer bags and storing them in your freezer.