Join the FUN as We Grow into Our New Home!

Busy as the proverbial bees, the FUN team is still getting settled into our routine at our brand-new location. We are incredibly grateful for the hard work of two amazing Scouts whose Eagle projects made this massive move possible:

Thank you, Rama: Rama organized and oversaw the relocation of all our garden beds and soil. Moving it all was a monumental task spanning several days and requiring many volunteers, but he pulled it off in spectacular fashion.

Thank you, Wilson: Wilson and his team tool on the daunting task of installing our new fencing. This time around, the fence is higher to keep out the local deer, and much stronger to keep out all the other critters.

We are also incredibly grateful to Tom and John for transforming our garden's accessibility. Tom and his friends hauled hundreds of bricks to our new site, and John installed the paved pathways in truly spectacular fashion. Thanks to them, navigating our new space is a breeze.

Kale

Collards

Buttercrunch

Though the season started out quite cold before warming up to a cool spring, our crops thrived thanks to a rainy May. We are thrilled to announce that we have already donated over 400 pounds of fresh produce, including: Leaf lettuce & Buttercrunch, Collards & Kale, Romaine and Turnips.

Leaf Lettuce

As we finish harvesting the spring greens, we are look forward to a bountiful summer. We can’t wait to see the next succession of crops take off and bring even more fresh abundance to our community.

Thank you to everyone who continues to support our growth.

FUN's New Home

With the arrival of 2026, FUN is thrilled to announce our relocation to a beautiful, sunny new site at St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Falls Church.

This move was made possible by the incredible spirit of our community. We owe a huge debt of gratitude to a dedicated Scout who spearheaded the relocation of the Bee Happy Garden as his Eagle project, the many volunteers who rolled up their sleeves, and our new partners at St. Patrick’s who share our deep commitment to fighting food insecurity. FUN is so grateful for the generous support of others.

As we look forward, we also look back with immense gratitude. After five wonderful growing seasons at First Christian Church, we carry with us years of lessons learned and memories made. Our time there allowed us to sharpen our gardening skills and improve our growing methods, ensuring every season was more productive than the last. This culminated in a record-breaking 2025, where FUN donated an incredible 2,092 pounds of fresh produce for those in need.

Heartfelt thanks to St. Patrick’s for welcoming us with open arms. We already feel right at home!

FUN-derful Times in Bee Happy Garden

This summer has been quite the adventure in FUN’s Bee Happy Garden. After a late start with planting, a mix of heavy rain and high temperatures has our crops not only surviving but absolutely thriving. Some plants are still taking their time, but we're expecting some great harvests soon.

July 7, 2025

August 17, 2025

The peppers, on the other hand, are showing off. FUN recently harvested 10 pounds of jalapenos in a single day. The habaneros are just starting to fruit, we’ll be harvesting those fiery peppers right up until the first frost. With six different varieties of sweet peppers, we’ve been picking pounds of them each week.

As always, FUN has tromboncino running rampant, or should we say “rampicante” as the variety of tromboncino is Zucchini rampicante, meaning “climbing zucchini” in Italian. One of FUN’s favorite crops, it never disappoints

Tromboncinos

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Tomatoes

Our tomatoes got a late start, but now we have gangs of them just starting to blush. We're expecting abundant harvests in the latter weeks of August.

The cucumber harvest is winding down, we're already thinking about what new variety to try next year. The pole green beans have struggled with the high temperatures, blooming and fruiting later than usual, and are just starting to provide bountiful harvests. Unfortunately, our beautiful yellow beans didn't live up to their looks, proving to be a bit of a disappointment in terms of productivity.

Green Beans

Due to our upcoming move to a new location, we won't be planting a fall garden this year. We're excited about this new chapter and will be sharing more details soon. Keep an eye on our updates to see what's next for the Bee Happy Garden!

FUN’s Farewell & Heartfelt Thanks to FCC!

This year marks a bittersweet turning point for FUN. It's our final season growing on the front lawn of First Christian Church of Falls Church as we make way for an exciting new project that will significantly benefit our community.

Our partnership with FCC has been nothing short of a blessing, driven by a shared mission to combat food insecurity. They've generously provided land, water, and financial support, enabling us to deliver an abundance of healthy, home-grown produce to those who need it most. We extend our deepest gratitude to FCC for their incredible commitment and partnership.

Bee Happy Garden May 19, 2025

Despite the upcoming change, our garden has been thriving this spring! We have beds filled with leaf lettuce, buttercrunch, Romaine, kale, cilantro, green onions, and turnips. So far, we've already harvested over 200 pounds of fresh food from just a few beds! Over the next few weeks, we'll be harvesting the remainder of our spring crops to prepare for an equally abundant summer season. Stay tuned for updates on our summer bounty!

Romaine, leaf lettuce, kale,
 and turnips in the background

Green onions

Turnips

A FUN-tastic Year in the Bee Happy Garden

FUN had another FUN-tastic year at Bee Happy, donating close to 2000 pounds of produce in 2024.

It's been far too long since FUN provided an update on our gardens! This post will be a bit longer than usual to catch you up on all the exciting (and challenging) things that happened this year.

Following a bountiful spring, we experienced a scorching summer with temperatures consistently exceeding 90 degrees for much of the prime growing season. While some plants thrived in the heat, others struggled.

Cucumbers were prolific, we harvested over 50 in one day. Zucchini seemed to grow right in front of our eyes. Tromboncino squash were plentiful and robust. Our pepper plants, especially the habaneros and jalapenos, produced an abundance of fiery fruits. We had a bumper crop of basil, in constant production until fall.

Two varieties of tomatoes, Sunset Sauce (yellow) and Verona (large grape), thrived in the summer sun, while a third couldn’t tolerate the heat and wasn’t as abundant.

Every summer, we learn something new. This year FUN learned that green beans don’t grow well above 90°. Their flower production was stunted, subsequently our pole bean production was mediocre. We did redeem ourselves with green bush beans which seemed to flourish

Unfortunately, FUN’s hope for a bountiful cucuzzi gourd

harvest was dashed. It was a beautiful plant, with generous vines but fruiting was impacted by the extreme heat. Another instance of extremely high temperatures preventing the plants from producing flowers, resulting in very few gourds.

Fall crops were a great success. We harvested a plentiful crop of turnips in October. Peppers continued to produce until Thanksgiving, while leaf lettuce, kale, and romaine were harvested until the first week of December.

January is a time for reflection, planning, and looking forward to the new growing season. We'll be carefully analyzing our successes and challenges from this year to make informed decisions about our garden plans for 2024. FUN is never ending in our garden! 

FUN-nomenal Spring Harvest

 

Buttercrunch and Romaine April 4th

FUN's dedication to fresh, local produce shone through this spring with a phenomenal harvest, exceeding 600 pounds of delicious greens, turnips, and green onions! Thanks to a mild winter, we were able to get a head start in March, picking crisp lettuce, spinach, and kale planted the previous fall.

FUN had a fantastic time planting and harvesting turnips, bok choy, green onions, romaine, buttercrunch, leaf lettuce, spinach and kale.

Buttercrunch May 7th

Romaine May 7th

But FUN's success didn't stop there! We are forever grateful for the help of Miller Farm. Their seedlings were instrumental in ensuring we had flourishing crops in all 24 of our garden beds.

Spinach May 22nd

Green Onions May 22nd

In fact, our harvest was so plentiful, we had a delightful challenge of finding storage for all the fresh produce – a problem we happily welcome!

Looking ahead, FUN's summer season is bursting with potential. We've planted a diverse selection of vegetables, including 3 varieties each of tomatoes and squash, 4 types of hot peppers, 3 varieties of sweet peppers, 2 each of cucumbers and green pole beans, and fragrant basil.

And in an exciting first for FUN, we've also planted a special type of edible gourd that we can't wait to share with our clients!

Stay tuned for updates on our summer harvest bounty!

FUN Fall Harvest in 2023 and a Look Ahead in 2024

 

Harvest October 25, 2023: cilantro, kale, and peppers

Food Uniting Neighbors had a fantastic fall harvest this year! Our garden was overflowing with a variety of fresh produce, including: 3 varieties of lettuce, hearty bok choy and kale, sweet turnips and hakurei turnips, delicious gazelle spinach, cilantro, earthy beets, and for the first time ever, we grew rutabagas!

We harvested our delicious summer peppers until the end of October. At our last harvest for the season in December, our garden was still providing us with beautiful romaine lettuce, vibrant rutabagas, and sweet beets.

Hakurei and globe top turnips 

Black seeded simpson and leaf lettuce

Cilantro

As winter settles in, the FUN team is already dreaming of spring. We're spending our days poring over seed catalogs and meticulously planning our next season's crops. We can't wait to get our hands dirty again and fill our garden with even more fresh, healthy food for our community.

Gazelle spinach

We're hoping that 2024 will blossom with joy and that our next harvest will be even more bountiful than the last. We're looking forward to the next season, sharing our love of growing food, and nourishing our community!