Hi All,
The North Hive seems to be calming down! Amy joined me yesterday and was a great help especially since I dropped my glasses while chasing my cat back inside the house before I left for the hives!!!! She got a quick lecture on what to look for in the cells and we got right in there to take the hive apart. We took it down to the deep box and worked our way up looking for any sign of the Queen doing her job. No eggs were found but there were small larvae which tells us there has been some recent egg laying. We will go back in next week to shrink the hive downs I will be sure to have my glasses so we can hopefully find eggs! Her Hubby got some great action shots of us inspecting which I included below. The 1st shot is of us taking the hive apart, the 2nd shot is off me showing Amy where to look and the 3rd shot is Amy inspecting a frame for larvae! Thank you Amy for helping out with the bees!
SCIF was back out last week! The helped Amy & Enrique to glean out bean beds and then Brenda joined them all to glean out 3 beds and fork 2 of the beds! It was pretty tedious work, the beans are all hidden within the plants and there was also a bed that had cherry tomato plants that needed to be gleaned of its fruit! Busy morning for the SCIF crew but they were troopers and got the chores done!
Peas & Me were out and got 2 beds prepped! CL took part of the crew to glean, weed and prep bed ARB2. They finished rather quickly and planted it with carrots & shallots! My half of the crew got to work on bed E02 (which was gleaned out the day before by SM & JB, forking) taking off the old straw, fertilizing and composting the bed. The kiddos all did great with bed prep work!
Laura & Leif’s classes helped Kelly continue planting bed K05 with more cabbages, also watered bit in. Laura’s class helped fill a ditch West of K07. Kaleidoscope helped Amy to finish planting bed AB32 with Ruby cabbage and the shallots while the other part of the are helped Kelly to start planting leeks in bed K05. The 2nd Kaleidoscope group helped Enrique to continue planting the leeks in bed K05 and the other part of the group helped Kelly to shell fava beans for their next chore!
StopWaste’s Sweet Class was out for their annual visit to Fertile GroundWorks. Each Fall StopWaste holds a compost class. It is an invitation only so if you are interested be sure to let Brenda or me know so we can get you on the information!
Kyle Martin from Mercury News and East Bay Times was out on Tuesday to interview Fertile GroundWorks and take pictures for their annual Share the Spirit campaign! Aric Crabb was the photographer who joined him! Thank you both for coming out to the garden to help promote our mission!
This week Brenda accepted a check from Tr-Valley Nonprofit Alliance on Fertile GroundWorks behalf for $4,000! Help comes in many forms and we are grateful to Katherine Young and Mony Nop for creating a way for non profits to “share resources and elevate their missions”!
8 beds were prepped this week with 9 beds being planted with Winter crops! Almost 3,000 transplants went in to the ground and almost 100 seeds were directly sown! Over 9,500# of compost was moved into the 8 beds! Are you all tired, I know I am!
We are constantly working on irrigation. Lance and I noticed in the P beds that the drip lines looked like there were a lot of leaks spouting everywhere but what we learned is that the pressure from the water pushing through the hoses made it look like leaks! If there is not a huge spout happening take a closer look, it may just be the pressure from the water pushing through. Grab one of us if you need confirmation on that!
Gopher traps were set, Berry Patch continued getting work done, the grapes over by the Worm Bin are pruned up for Winter…we did lose one grape plant to a gopher, took the root and left the plant up top! Irrometer work continued over by N15 & P15.
88 more beds to prep with 33 shifts to go….if we can get 3 beds prepped per shift we will definitely be done with Winter bed prep before the Holiday Break starting December 20th! By the way, that includes the new expansion beds! We can do this everyone!!!
Last weeks harvest brought in 508# of produce to send in to the local food pantries! Great Jobe everyone!
Thank you all for your help in the garden!
Take care
Lori