For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Bess: Senior Gardener for Lucille’s Vegetable Garden and I’m fond of telling everyone who comes to visit that I have the best volunteers in the world.

And no, my volunteers don’t even pay me extra to say it.

Managing a vegetable garden is hard work, and it can be complex and precise work as well. In 2025, we donated 2,826 lbs. of food to the Foodbank for Delaware County, across 43 harvest days that spanned 7 months of the year from April until November. There is no way I would have been able to manage that without the dedicated help of the amazing volunteers who work in Lucille’s Garden.

There genuinely aren’t words to express how grateful I am to all the people who come to work with me in this garden. So here is just a quick snapshot of what each season in Lucille’s looks like, and how integral Tyler volunteers are to the story of the year.

Winter

Winter 2025 was a snowy one at Tyler. The ground was white for the entire month of February. But despite the cold, volunteers showed up to help start the 3,000 seeds we germinated indoors. An especially impressive feat because I am careful to label each and every tray with the date the seeds were started, the variety of the plant, the starting location and the bed where they will be planted in the garden. Luckily, I have volunteer Terri, who — with her science background — is patient with my insanity.

Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Joan was quietly putting in (literally) hundreds of hours drawing the gorgeous images that we use on our plant signs every year. And volunteers from the education team were painting boards to help with carrot germination and help bring even more art and whimsy into the garden.

Spring

Spring 2025 was busy, as are all springs at Tyler. But our hard work in seed starting paid off when we ran our first harvest on April 24, bringing in 20 lbs. of fresh produce, including asparagus, rhubarb and arugula to donate to the food bank. Every Thursday, my volunteers — usually Lee, Carol, Debbie, Terri, Gina, Viola, Mei, Henry and Meg — show up in the morning ready to get out and get picking. Thursdays get crazy busy in season, but I know I can count on them to jump in and lend a hand even when I’m running around trying to do way too many things at once. And they are very good at reminding me that the garden looks good, and that I shouldn’t drive myself crazy.

We also added in our regular Tuesday morning volunteer days, where volunteers Louise and Patty help keep me sane by showing up to seed, weed, plant, water, rake, trellis and more. This time of year I tend to need a pep talk or two in order to believe I’ll actually going to accomplish everything I need to in order to get the season rolling. And Patty and Louise help me keep my chin up when the work gets overwhelming

Summer

Summer is always crazy in a vegetable garden, and this summer was especially jam packed with the summer camp kids jumping in to help out with garden tasks like watering, harvesting and even some cooking. Lucille’s Garden volunteers were always happy to answer a question or keep the harvest running even as I led camper harvests and ran blue butterfly pea experiments. Bean Queen Debbie even manned the potato digging station for campers, which led to more than 92 lbs. of potatoes donated. And an astonishing 187 lbs. of beans.

Fall

We never know what fall will bring to a vegetable garden, but autumn 2025 was warm enough that we were able to keep harvesting until the week before Thanksgiving. From harvest days run in the pouring rain where Terri showed up with a full rain suit, to an emergency S.O.S. email to Louise to come and help on a few random Friday mornings when I was desperate to get the frost-bitten plants put to bed, we finished the season strong. Special shout out that when I emailed in the beginning of November that I was also taking up a canned and dried food drive to make sure our donations were well stocked in November, volunteers started showing up in the garden less than one hour later with full bags.

To me, the story of Lucille’s Garden is one of community. From seed starting to planting, weeding watering and harvesting, to putting the garden to bed, many hands make the work light every day of the year.

I’m grateful to every single person, volunteer, visitor, camper, field trip student, and staff who come by the garden. I hope you know that each time you plant a seed, pick veggies, pull weeds, ask a question or even just appreciate the beauty of vibrant growing food, you leave goodwill and joy behind.

And I very much hope you take a piece of my gratitude home with you.