Amy and I were at the SACG alone on Wednesday evening. She started where Rayna had left off weeding
our strawberry patch. The weeds are
so well entrenched (since it was neglected last year by the gardeners who had
been assigned to water and weed it) that virtually everything had to be dug out
and the berries replanted. It seems to
be going well enough that Mike Hogan, OSU Extension Agent, who stopped by on
Friday complimented the work. Carly came to put in her work equity today and I started her off by watering all of
the strawberries. We had enough
strawberries to put in a raised bed so that I can repot them next week to
either sell or give away to another community garden. And, Hilary’s last work equity task of the
day was to take some of our extra berries and plant them in the strawberry pot
by the shed. While Amy weeded, I weeded
another two rows in my plot, moved a trellis and planted a row of snow peas and
a half row of potatoes. I also tried out
our new compost thermometer, but it said that our compost bin was on 45
degrees. I was worried that it was
broken, so I took it home and ran it under some hot water. It works fine; our compost, however, is not
composting. It needs a nitrogen fix. 
On Friday, I met Ava
from the Greater
South East Communities United Garden at Gethsemane UMC and I got together and
drove over to Trudeau’s Fence to pick up some scrap cedar which Trudeau's was generously donating. Trudeaus has been a generous supporter of the SACG since prior to our breaking ground in 2009. They not only donate the cedar, they load it for us and helped Ava with a few other pieces, too. Ava has volunteer union carpenters coming next weekend to
build her two gates for their community garden.
I want to improve and straighten our southern fence to look more like
the amazing fence around the new north Bexley Community Garden. I
teased Ava because she was running around a lot for her garden on Friday, had
rented a U-Haul moving van and had lots of supplies. Those trucks are exhausting to drive.
This morning, one of my cats caught a mouse in my kitchen
(hiding under the bookshelf holding my cookbooks). She dropped it, though, when I put my foot
out to keep her from taking it into my office and to redirect her to through
the back door to my patio. I was upset
that I couldn’t stay to help her re-catch it because I needed to hustle over to
the Garden to meet another volunteer group.
Sadly, the dead mouse was not waiting for me when I returned at 3 this
afternoon. I have to start thinking
about laying some trarps. . . .
Amy came to finish weeding the strawberry patch and then
moved on to some of our southern flower beds. She also brought warm blueberry muffins. Yum. I finally put her off to start tending her plot. She
found another snake while she was weeding under the brick paths and brought it
into the Garden for us to see. Zion went
nuts and started carrying it around the Garden. I had to take it from him and
set it free near the fence line so that it could find a new place to hibernate.
Phil came to finish his work equity. I had him fill in thin places along the
exterior fence where we had aggressively pruned raspberries last week and to
pull more gooseweed/cleavers and ragweed from the fence line while we still
can. He also edged and mulched one of
our cherry trees and then weeded and mulched around the sign. We then picked a plot for him and he aggressively weeded and prepared the soil in his plot. It looked amazing. That particular plot has
not gotten a lot of
love over the last decade so I had him work in about a cubic yard of compost
that the OSU students had liberated from our compost bins on our Opening
Day. He plans to start planting tomorrow.
Sabrina came with her youngest, Finn, to start tending her
plot. (Zephyr had an overnight boy scout camping
trip). She weeded and hoed away. Her plot was our three sisters plot last year
(with corn, squash and beans). When we
returned in 2018, it was a field of purple nettles. We are mystified. Mike said that nettles will take over any
disturbed ground, but makes good compost.
Sabrina has also discovered that it is edible and used in
ointments. While she was weeding around
and under the landscaping fabric that Rayna left behind when it was her plot,
she discovered several snakes that had been hibernating there. Sabrina HATES snakes. I have to remind everyone that they eat bugs.
Good snakes.
Our neighbors at Kimball Farms were also very busy this
morning. They weeded all of their beds
(and in between) and filled them with new soil and surrounded them with mulch. Near the end of the day, Taylor came to tell
me that the spicket on our big tank was malfunctioning and had fallen out
(spraying water everywhere and making a small pond at Kimball Farms). Sh*t!
I asked the gardeners to not use it again until I had emptied it with a
hose (to create a temporary pond next door near our flower bed) and Ken glued
it back the spicket back in securely.
It is always something.
Next week, we will work some more on clearing out the wood
chips and spreading mulch donated by Ava and Keep Columbus Beautiful. We’ll also top off the raised beds, etc. and
work a bit on the southern fence before we are prevented from doing so by the
growing raspberry crop. We also have a
lot of strawberry and raspberry plants to pot and sell. I hope
to also plant some leeks and garlic and to start planting greens in a food
pantry plot.
No comments:
Post a Comment