Above: Volunteers for a garden in the Pine Hill Road neighborhood share their success at the end of it’s 6th season supporting the community. (edited from contributed images)
[Editor’s Note: The following post was contributed by Al Hamilton on behalf of the Pine Hill Meadow Gardens volunteers.]
The plants have been tilled under, the cover crops are in and the ground is starting to freeze. The 2025 season is over for the Pine Hill Meadow Garden. It was a momentous year with a harvest of 11,183 lbs., shattering last year’s record of 5,388 lbs.
Our increased harvest enabled us to expand the list of pantries we supported this past season. We donated locally every week to the Southborough Food Pantry, Southborough Free Fridge, Marlborough Community Cupboard, and in Worcester, to South Worcester Neighborhood Center, Veterans, Inc., and African Community Education. We also were able to expand our culturally relevant crop offerings of Asian eggplants, jilo, collards, and kousa zucchini to also include okra, Chinese cabbage, garden egg eggplants and bitter gourds. We also added cabbage, a variety of peppers and Thanos eggplant to our regular offerings.
Several factors led to our increase in productivity. First, we may have finally solved the “Coyote is eating our corn” problem. We installed a solar powered electric fence, resulting in a harvest of over a ton of fresh corn on the cob. In prior years, the coyotes decimated our corn harvest.
Curiously, the hot dry sunny weather was a boon as well. This delayed the onset of several diseases that typically appear in late July and August such as powdery mildew and downy mildew. We made extensive use of our solar powered well and drip irrigation system to make up for the lack of rain. Careful selection of disease resistant varieties also played a role, as did a more intensive integrated pest management plan to deal with insects that cans destroy a harvest before it starts. Nearly all of our pest management schemes use organic methods.
The real key to this year’s success was the work of our expanded network of volunteers, to whom we are incredibly grateful. Several new adult volunteers from the Southborough community found their way to the garden this year to help. We also had corporate groups from Whole Foods and Metrowest Mini Splits (located here in Southborough), who did yeoman’s service. 
Special acknowledgement goes to St. Marks High School who sent numerous hard-working crews while school was in session to help plant and harvest. We had a steady stream through the garden of great students from Algonquin High School, 2 of whom regularly visited the garden 
all summer to scout for any evidence of some of the more destructive insects such as the Colorado potato beetle, stem borer, squash bug, cabbage worm and green horned tomato worm. Also, among our Algonquin students who got their hands dirty in the garden with us were two students who started an Instagram page for us and another who has been developing a garden website. We also are very grateful for the generous financial support this year of the Southborough Rotary Club and Main Street Bank, who together donated $2,000 to help defray the costs of our operations. River’s Edge Garden Center and Gulbankian’s Garden Center helped with vegetable plants. 
And, of course we could not do any of this without our regular neighborhood volunteers who are there for the garden day in and day out.
In about a month, the seed catalogs will arrive and planning for the 2026 garden will start. You can follow our journey next year or see the results of past years on our [Facebook Group]. To volunteer you can use our sign up genius which will be posted again in April 2026 or contact us at dwainrib@gmail.com. We welcome both individuals and groups.
It takes about $4000 to operate the garden each year. If you would like to help financially, you can contribute to: The Pine Hill Meadow Trust, Inc., 35 Pine Hill Road, Southborough, Ma. 01772. The Pine Hill Meadow Trust is a 501c(3) not for profit organization; your contribution is tax deductible to the extent permitted by law.
