Hi All,
Ok, Tod and I did this road trip, up through Norte county into Oregon and then back down through Modoc county so Tod could continue his goal of doing a bird list in every county in California. This past weekend-over 1100 miles AND I got one new bird!!! Oh, I also braved a lava tube! I am NOT a fan of anything underground so this was a big deal for me! It was about 1/3 mile long, flashlights needed and there was a partial collapse-it happened during the lava flow but still-close call, lol!!! It was a fun trip-it was also our way of celebrating Tod’s birthday! He has one more county to go, Inyo, and I told him he cannot make that trip without me-the Eastern Sierras are GORGEOUS!
Anyhow, back to work…
Kaleidoscope was back for the third week in a row
It was a bit on the hotter side so Kelly and I set tables up for the crew in as much shade as we could find! The entire crew got right to work-two new volunteers joined them-and they made fast work out of everything we gave them! I had shredders shredding paper for the worms, Kelly had garlic cleaners finishing up the Nootka Rose garlic for us, one of the staff members had the guys helping him clean the labels for the seed starting that just got underway yesterday and some gloves were paired up as well! They also found time to help Kelly get rid of some old tomato cages by the Church garden and take the garlic trimmings back to the Compost Area! VERY busy crew that day!
If you notice over by the sheds we are in the process of getting rid of one of the old plastic sheds. It held a lot of irrigation hoses which are now all over in the pump shed. Pruners were pulled last week that are needing to be worked on and are already back, sharpened & working well! A physical inventory of our seeds began on Saturday and we also started working on the survey for the signs that mark the beds!
The last of the trees in the Orchard had their tops pruned back and the leaves were raked up too. If you are ever wanting to work in the Orchard and end up raking leaves be sure to place them in the green waste bin out front. We cannot chance fire blight getting in to our compost bins!
K06 & K07 got some opo tunnel love, lol! CL has been working on weaving the opo plants up the tunnel the past few weeks and SB & DP helped out on Wednesday of last week. The top of the tunnel is almost completely covered and we were able to harvest 12 opo over the past 2 days and send in to the local food pantries! They are hard to spot as the leaves are rather big and tend to hide the fruit!
Tomatoes are getting tied back-this is especially need right now because if we do not keep up on this chore we will be climbing over the plants! We also need to keep an eye on the squash beds, cucumber and melon beds and be sure we are tying those back as well. Oh, and tomatillos too!!!
SB was out last week and he mentioned how he is shading his kiwi plant so he helped to shade ours! He noticed it was getting sunburnt so he took a tomato cage and covered it with agribond to help shield it from the sun. Check it out-it is the one behind bed K06.
The Tomato Cage Area started getting worked on-sheet mulching. Before that could be completed the cages, cinder blocks and planks had to be moved. Scott, PL & TL started that last week for us and it is still a work in progress. Saturdays crew continued with moving everything out of the way, getting it weeded out and the ground leveled as well as getting the cardboard placed down! Go team go!
Can you guess what else happened? If you guessed weeding you were correct!!! Before helping Scott with the Tomato Cage Area PL & TL went around the garden to take out anymore sorghum plants they found lurking about! I did want to mention that bed P05 is a Three Sisters bed and that the corn growing in that bed is a purposeful planting and we should not pull them out. Everyone of course came together to continue work on the infamous weed…bindweed! It is flowering and we are needing to get the flowers out!
663lbs of produce went in to our local pantries last week!
Thank you all for your help with everything you got done:)
Take care
Lori