Keyser: Payback Time at Community Gardens

In case you haven’t been outside, there is what is known as a heat wave, which means it's hot out there.

Regardless of the high temperatures, the results are showing up at the Community Gardens at . Vegetables in all shapes and sizes are ready for harvesting. It's the result of some tender and loving care from the many volunteers at this project.

Back in May, Susan Carp, Council on Aging director for Hamilton and Wenham, was able to locate two plots of open land near the senior housing units, known at Enon Village. Combining donations for supplies and local volunteers with lots of hard work preparing the land - so to speak - the Community Gardens were up and ready to produce vegetables.

As time went by, more time and energy was put in the project, making sure the weeds were removed and the plots had plenty of water to help things grow, plus checking for plant-eating bugs.

During the past week, the results were appearing - with lots of fresh squash ready to pick and other veggies just about ready to harvest.

Since the project has worked out well, the hope is that the gardens can be enlarged and that more folks will be available to help make it an excellent community project.

In a new twist, pictures of the just picked squash from the garden have appeared on Facebook. Nothing like seeing project results on the Internet.

In other happenings in the towns, the group Enough is Enough has forward requests to both the Hamilton and Wenham Boards of Selectmen asking for a date be set on a meeting of the Operational Audit Committee.

This group was the one that made the first request to have a audit done. This request was later approved by voters in both towns and . But since then little or no action appears to have been taken by the school board on recommendations in the audit report.

Therefore the Enough is Enough group is asking for the oversight committee to meet and give reports on what the school board has done in regards to the audit survey.

, I talked about the Hamilton shopping center and in a phone call today, a person said that it's too bad that room for the old thrift shop couldn’t be found. She went on to say that it actually did as much or more business then some of the high end shops at the mall. The shop was able to generate a lot of money for programs run by the church.

So that’s it for this week. Stay out of the hot sun and drink lots of water. Bye, bye.