Happy August everyone,
Hard to believe that this week saw the end of July already. I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. Thanks to all of you the garden looks beautiful. Thanks to all you patient weeders including the families from Global Leadership Initiative for Youth (GLIFY), Promoting Leadership Among Youth (PLAY), Young Men’s Service League (YMSL), Del Arroyo 4H, National Charity League (NCL) and the Girl Scouts. Heck we even got started pulling the weeds from the produce washing area and the driveway! Next we attack the Bermuda grass patch, WAHOO!
All that weeding coupled with transplanting the late seeded (7/1/20) basil seedlings and the 39 cucurbits (squash and melons) that were REALLY SLOW to germinate (about 5 weeks), we were able use these seedlings to fill holes left by gopher and bunny predation. All this hard work means the summer garden is officially planted and looking very well loved! THANK YOU ALL!
We were also able to share 335 pounds of freshly harvested vegetables with our neighbors, in addition to onions and garlic from the curing shed. YAY! On Saturday, we volunteers even got to take some summer squashes home to sample. Sunday I used some of the yellow straight necks I brought home to make some of LP’s chocolate zucchini bread, YUM!!! I am attaching the recipe here for all you zucchini/summer squash growers to try. Remember that August 8th is National Zucchini Day-a day to share your summer squash with all your neighbors and remember to roll up your car windows.
I am not sure where they might be coming from but it looks like there may be some deer munching on some of the baby fruit, nut and even one of the orange trees in the orchard. Sigh! So this weekend, we started putting ‘tomato’ cages around the trees to deter these pest, if they are high jumping rabbits or squirrels we will have to try something else. I ‘harvested’ some of my dogs’ hair to sprinkle about and ordered some stinky sachets to hang around the orchard. This is new to me so if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear and try them.
As always, my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to all you. You are all heroes in my book! Thank you all for coming out to help the garden help feed our neighbors. Fertile GroundWorks couldn’t do what we do without each and every one of you. THANK YOU!
Have a wonderful week everyone.
Until next we meet, do stay safe and keep loving the ones you are with.
Giant cosmic hugs
Brenda
