Hi All,
Oh, it looks like it is going to be a nice rainy day today!!! Tod and I thought we would get rained on yesterday morning and so made plans for indoor activities and were disappointed. Luckily Saturday we made it out to Knight’s Ferry Covered Bridge Park, in the gold hills just past Oakdale. We only made it about a half a mile in but the route we took along the river’s edge made it seem like miles upon miles! We definitely need to go back because there is still so much more to explore! Next time we’ll pack a lunch to bring in with us, that was our downfall…I got hungry AND we forgot to grab the water pack! There were so many people on the trails and there were at least 2 couples who brought their remote control cars to walk along the paths or take them up into the boulders!. Of course there were birds for us to watch as well;) Plant nerd that I am…I FINALLY got to see a dudleya in the wild AND UP CLOSE! I included a picture below! AND, we stopped by Poot’s Cactus Nursery on the way home, yes, we did a bit of shopping and added to our plant collection
Last week in the garden…
Coach made it out to the garden for the first time! We had such a blast showing them everything the garden had to offer. They were all ready to jump in and continue with work on the expansion. They got out in the field and started laying down cardboard and dumping the compost on top! While they were doing that another part of the crew were helping out with getting over 700 seeds started as well as 80 peppers transplanted for our Plant Sale! This crew came right out and were all eager to help us get the work done! Go Coach Go!
Thanks to the efforts of everyone getting out to the expansion we were able to start work on the next section last Friday. The sheet mulching happened each day as well as work on the pipe being laid out for the irrigation. JA, also out for the first time, helped with laying out 2” pipe and 1” stub outs. Tuesday pipes were tested and then capped for now. Saturday saw spigots attached and valve boxes dug in. Everything is moving along thanks to the concerted efforts of all!
Lance is still working at eradicating the vicious thistle and malicious mallows throughout the Orchard. As of Saturday he noted most thistle was gone from the West side of the Orchard…of course, until those vicious thistle seedlings pop back up! DW helped him out a bit by getting some malicious mallows weeded out over by the Tool Trailers on Friday!
G04 was planted last week with 67 Yokatta-Na greens thanks to KS & SG. They got them planted, watered and strawed in. They also took the time to clean out bed M01 chard and we were able to hand that over to EU for Speedy the Tortoise to munch on! CL planted another grape over in JA1 S, over by the Worm Bin. Cannot wait to start harvesting grapes! SM & MB spread some CA Wildflower seeds, that were donated the other week, into the Western Native Hedgerow. Hopefully the rain helps the wildflowers to grow!
Another 288 seeds were started for the garden-an assortment of peppers (all of them new to the garden) and Nadia eggplant. Over 300 seedlings were pricked out and potted up into their 4” pots for the Plant Sale. As they are potted up and moved in to the LHH we are trying our best to keep plants organized by their Variety name. We may have a volunteers go through the LHH this week to be sure we are getting that done. It will help us out when it is time to move plants in to the BHH & the garden plants over to the High School.
Oh yes, the Native Western Hedgerow is continuing to be mapped out. EL is helping us out with that and we were able to get her the info she needed to continue that work. She is working on a map similar to what we use out on the picnic table for the bed location. In the Native Hedgerow though plant names and their locations need to be added in for the garden to keep track of what is planted where. This also helps Brenda out with grants when she needs to provide them with specifics on what is in the garden.
KB, her daughter and son were out for the Friday Parent & Me afternoon. They helped to feed the worms and we went in to the Big Hoop House to pot up almost 100 Revolution peppers while they were there. We are going to continue meeting most Fridays so if you know of any parents looking to get their littles in the garden have them fill out a volunteer form at our web site and to note that they are interested in the Parent and Me Fridays!
Also on Friday we were able to donate seeds to Livermore High School so the students can learn about plant propagation!
We harvested ~165# of produce, including ~36# of lemons donated by MB and ~7# of mixed produce from C&A, that was sent in to our local food pantries!
For Valentine’s Day Aditi took some of MB’s lemons and made a lemon tart for the crew. Brenda loved the fact that she used heart shaped pans for the tart, how cute is that!!!!!
Thank you all for coming out, some for the first time, to help us continue the work that we do for our community!
Take care
Lori
