Hi All,
Man, my life has been BUSY! Tod and I went to Mammoth Lakes last weekend for his county bird list and our wedding anniversary:) We explored Rock Creek Lake (picture below), Lake Mamie, Lake Mary and Horseshoe Lake…you all, it is so darn BEAUTIFUL in the Eastern Sierras! The Aspens are turning color and it was just all so breath taking! I got back to work on Tuesday but just have not had the time to get the Happy Note out for the week till now!
Last week in the garden…
The State Compensation Insurance Fund Crew were out again and Amazon was out for the first time to help in the garden! Combined the crews helped us to harvest over 1000# of produce, glean, weed & prep 3 beds for the winter vegetables and potted up over 800 seedlings for future planting! It is always so fun to have the work crews come out, bring in their exuberant energy and look forward to seeing them back in the garden at a future date!!!
The rest of the week found our regulars getting in to 3 beds to glean weed and prepping another bed. They helped out in the Compost Area, feeding bin #1, sifting bin #3 & #4 as well as adding wood chipped browns to bin #3 & #4 and greens to bin #3. Scott’s afternoon crew of BTC/Girl Scouts were able to pot up over 700 seedlings for future planting!
Guess what else happened…weeding, yup you read that right, weeding! Just because we are now concentrating our efforts into prepping beds for the winter veggies does not mean the weeds are asleep, lol! They are still out and about. The best way to handle them now though is to glean out the beds and get them prepped for the winter veg. This process takes care of 2 things at once:)
Bed prep takes up a lot of time., especially when you are working with a bed full of plants! The steps of bed prep go like this:
1. Glean and weed out the bed.
2. Pull off the staples holding down the hoses and then pull off the hoses to one side of the bed.
3. Fork the bed-with this you are getting in there to break up the soil and loosen it up for the new plant’s roots to spread.
4. Level what was just forked up.
5. Fertilize with the appropriate amount of COF for the bed you are working in and water it in.
6. Cover with 2” of Oliveria Compost and level it off.
7. The front beds all get “shake & bake” done, which is taking the fork and moving the moister soil up into the dryer compost. AB25 and back through the P beds do not need “shake & baking” done.
8. Level if the bed was just “shake & baked”. If no “shake & bake” move to the next step.
9. Place the hoses back on the bed and water it in. This could take up to an hour to get the compost to accept the water!!!
Once those steps are done the bed is ready to plant!
All that work done and you all harvested 1,229.62# of produce for our local food pantries!
Thank you, thank you, thank you all for showing up and helping us continue this important work for our community!
Take care
Lori
