The garden and compost hub will be closed December 23-January 3 for the winter holiday. 

Happy Monday!

Hi All,

Must start off with, I am so excited! A young Eagle Scout contacted us a few months ago and we asked if he would be able to build us a platform for the worm bin. The cinder blocks we had to help us get into the worm bin just was not sturdy enough to continue the work we are doing with York and Kaleidoscope. AB stepped up to the plate and got it built for us this past Saturday! This is going to offer easier access to the York students, Kaleidoscope clients and ourselves when we are all working to feed, water and cover the worms when needed. AB got his Troop, #998 as well as a couple of  YMSL members to come and help him create one of our goals for the year! Thank you to AB and his family as well as his Troop Leader, RS, in working diligently over the past few months to make this happen!

We had a busy week in the garden. It started off with York bringing back cleaned gloves and sorting them at the garden. They also helped to continue gleaning out bed L02 of all the monster tomato plants. They were huge! Tuesday finished off gleaning bed L02 as well as gleaned out M03 and AB25. JM & RL got most of the weeding out of L02 for us and the next day we got bed L02 and M03 prepped and ready for planting on Saturday. The Saturday crew planted 306 Torpedo onions and 204 Shanghai bok choy in L02 as well as planted M03 in 78 Capitola Brussel sprouts and 154 Red Burger onions…yes the onions have arrived! Brenda picked those up on Thursday along with the Brussel sprouts and some more bok choy. 

Essex was out this week and got busy in the garden with us! They helped us harvested and then spread out to help accomplish chores. TR started out helping to wash and pack the produce for deliveries. Once that was done she joined the guys in prepping bed M03 and then they all joined in to help finish off bed L02. It is really great when we all come together to get this good work done!

Livermore schools had their school meet up this past week at the garden! They helped Brenda to plant 51 Merlot cabbage plants and 115 Uzbek garlic plants. It was really nice having the garden coordinators out here and get to show them the garden. They were also able to pick up their veggie plants to bring back to their school’s garden! Brooke, our Board Director, thank you for coordinating this!

RB Weed Annihilator was out and attacking weeds by the Bee Enclosure. We still need to keep that tidied up for our next hive:) He also got busy winterizing the tropicals in the expansion beds by placing tubes over the plants. Thank you RB.

Aaaahhh, so much gleaning going on! Beds M09, M10, M12, M13 and AB30 got taken out pretty darn fast! M10 was only partially gleaned out so we do need to finish that one this week but the rest were all taken care of last week! A lot to prep up and get planted for this week! Two beds that are ready; AB17 and AB25. Ryan prepped A17 with the Friday crew and AB25 was finished up by Enrique with  the Saturday GLIFY crew. 

Compost! Ryan worked with a crew to get the cinder block cuttings pushed back, labeled the bins #1-5 and filled bin #4 80% with greens and browns. If you are wanting to learn about compost or just help out Ryan is the man to go to! 

York fed 2 small pumpkins to the worms, Brenda batched up fertilizer, AP hung up signs for the beds we need to save back the veggies, the onions were moved into boxes to help keep them watered while they wait to be planted, boxes were brought out to the garden for delivering tomatoes…all that and 676lbs of produce was washed and boxed up to deliver to our neighbors:)

Thank you all for coming and helping to make this garden work to get fresh produce out to our community!

Take care

Lori