Happy Thursday

Happy Thursday everyone,

My last happy note of 2020 makes me smile as much as my first. You all are great! Your generosity and hard work in service of our community always amazes me. This past week we were joined by the Promoting Leadership in Aspiring Youth foundation (PLAY) and many new volunteers. I really will miss working with you all as we close the garden until January 5th.
We were able to harvest 57 pounds of fresh produce and added that to the last 218 pounds of squash and crate ripened tomatoes from the shed to share 275 pounds of healthy food with our neighbors. We also finished prepping and planting the last three beds, now all the beds are officially planted so all we have to do is wait for everything to grow big enough to harvest and share. After a lot of hard digging out in the orchard we got the six trees Alden Lane donated planted, plus with more digging we finished planting another 51 natives plants. Also out in the orchard we weeded and weeded then broadcast a whole bunch of native wildflower seeds. It looks like we will get a couple days of rain starting with a wet Christmas. Plants everywhere!

We accomplished a lot in 2020. For those of you who like numbers, in 2020, 1,204 wonderful souls gave 8,881 hours to grow and give almost 20,000 pounds of fresh fruit and vegetables. To grow that food we amended all 15,526 square feet of beds (our 92 existing beds and 2,325 sq ft in our 8 new beds) with 87 cubic yards of compost-aka 104,000 pounds of compost and lots of our complete organic fertilizer. Who needs a gym? Out in the garden we planted and grew 5,073 plants this summer and then swapped them out for 34,305 winter plants. OK that includes 6,300 onions and literally thousands of beets, radishes, peas and carrot seeds that we sowed this fall, but dang that is a lot no matter how little the starting material is. We also created an orchard that now holds 115 trees. We also sowed wildflowers galore in the orchard and in the 1,150 square feet of new hedgerows. We planted 108 natives plants among the hedgerow flowers. Feed the pollinators of the world and they’ll feed us.

Yes indeed, you all truly ROCK! The world is indeed a better place and I a better person because of you all. As always, I want to thank all of you for being you and all your help caring for the garden and our entire community. Fertile GroundWorks could not do what we do without all of you. You truly make the garden a wonderful place to be. THANK YOU! My sincere wishes for us all to have wonderful holidays and a new year full of yummy food, love and peace. Looking forward to working with you all in 2021!

With heartfelt gratitude,
Brenda