Hi All,
Quiet weekend for Tod and me. I was up before the crack of dawn on Sunday but Tod slept in a bit more. That was good, he has been working hard the past 2 weeks building up his new business! He is learning as he goes and coming home with lots of cuts and bruises but is loving it. We mostly hung out at the house yesterday, straightened up and then made the brave trek to Costco (Sunday and rainy) to get a shed we’ve been needing to get our garage in order! We also watched the Led Zeppelin documentary on Netflix…if there are any fans out there I recommend watching it! The clips from their concerts were so wonderful to watch!!!
Phew, Saturday was the last day of Plant Sale for 2026! Friday & Saturday had a steady flow of customers, no need to stem the flow of people walking through the Big Hoop House. Kelly & the volunteer crew manned the Big Hoop House on Friday and Saturday with Barbara, her friend CC & SM (on Friday) manning the cashiering. DT (on Friday) & CB (on Saturday) replaced JR (last weekend) with handing out boxes for customers to use for holding their plants. PB & MB helped me to hand out plant lists and welcome customers in to the garden. With Saturday a little on the slower side Aditi took to weeding the garden, Lance is still defending the P beds and a few of us joined them throughout the garden when there were lulls. Brenda was again freed up to be able to connect with customers as they came through looking for insight in to the garden as well as lots of gardening tips! Spirits were high even with the threatening rain!
More good news, the expansion is now done being sheet mulched! Enrique G. and the Friday crew (with 2 new volunteers) and Saturday volunteers (GLIFY along with AW & TE) got it done this past weekend! Now it is all about finishing up the irrigation so we can plant the trees and it looks like we are going to have some oregano and rosemary to help us start up some patches and protective cover.
We started prepping beds last week!!! Out of 102 we got 3 prepped and 1 planted! Enjoy Life More was out and got the 1 bed planted-in the rain! When they first got to the garden they were helping Kelly to move plants from the Greenhouse over to the Little Hoop House and still had time to spend in the garden. By that time the rain had picked back up but the crew still had energy to burn! They helped to plant about 75 provider beans in A04 as well as cover them with strawberry baskets to protect them from the birds as the seedlings emerge.
Yup, bed prep for Summer veggies has begun! With the typical plan of prepping 3 beds per shift that would have the P beds forward done by the end of June…sounds like a long way off but not really. There is one change to the fertilizer this year. For the beds towards the front of the garden-from the pump shed/Little Hoop House forward-we will be using a gypsum fertilizer mix because these beds are low in calcium. If we find the rest of the beds-the ones past the pump shed/Little Hoop House-are low in calcium we will let you know.
The fava beans are getting big! They helped our harvest total for the week; 271.44#! There were also quite a few cauliflower heads that we were able to share with our food pantries! The weather may be all over the place but the plants are still producing enough to make a difference!
Thank you all for coming out to make the garden and our Plant Sale a success!
Take care
Lori