No rhubarb in this garden, but the borage is great
By Suzanne Werre
Editor
There’s gardening, and then there’s GARDENING.
Joleen McAlevey and “team Hirschkorn” don’t quite have complete crops in their garden at the McAlevey farm she shares with Paul Anderson and their son, Gus. But it’s close.
To keep everything straight, including what variety of bean is planted where, and which variety of corn should be ready to harvest first, is kept on a map that Jolene can check whenever she has a question.
“I have a map,” she said. “It’s a really big map. It has the varieties and when they’re harvestable.”
The foursome, which are just a small portion of the cooperative effort that works plants, fertilizes, weeds, cultivates and harvests the goods from the garden. More than 30 people, family, friends, farm workers, reap the benefits of their work.
For Joleen, the reward having a massive garden, which is probably in the ballpark of a block-long, if it was laid out in a line, is just “the work.”
