Hello All!
Boy was it toasty last week, however, it did not keep anyone away from the garden!
Tuesday saw our regular volunteers and the Newnan First United Methodist Church choir, from Georgia, come out to the garden and helped us get things DONE! Our regulars concentrated on getting the harvest done while Newnan split into about 4 groups and helped us to finish gleaning out bed N10, start the new expansion out back, plant 56 sweet potatoes and wash & pack the produce for delivery. Once the harvesting was done, and the group for washing/packing was established, everyone worked together to get 2 beds gleaned and 2 other beds prepped! In the Orchard the OG’s thinned back the fruit on the trees and K & J placed tomato cages on beds M09, M10 & M11! Our regulars gleaned out beds L03 & L04! About 12 of the Newnan choir volunteers worked with Ryan to get the new expansion sheet mulched! 6 of the choir volunteers helped Brenda plant the sweet potatoes and prep bed B13! Another group of 6 choir volunteers helped me to get bed N10 gleaned out and prep bed A06! Another 6 of the choir volunteers helped to wash and pack the harvested produce for delivery…over 600lbs of produce harvested on Tuesday!
Wednesday was a full day! The first wave of volunteers all stuck it out through the heat as it slowly moved in! There were some youngsters in this group that did so well
There was even a group that helped Brenda to prep bed L03 and get it planted with 26 Orange Caprese tomato plants before the shift even ended! The rest of us harvested, washed & packed the produce for delivery as well as weeded out the flowering bindweed up front by the berry patch! We also got okra seeds soaking for the next shift to plant up and planted 12 lettuce plants in bed M10 (it was abandoned after the 12 due to the heat!!!)! We harvested 125lbs that morning!
In the afternoon Enterprise turned up to get things DONE! As hot as it was they split into 2 groups and got to work! One group planted the 288 okra seeds into 6 packs for our garden beds:) They got the packs planted, watered and placed into the greenhouse! The other group worked to get bed N10, 300 sq ft, prepped and watered! At least 8 qts of fertilizer and over 5 wheelbarrows worth of compost and LOTS of water! Once the bed was well watered we all worked to get the bed covered with straw so it would not dry out again!
Friday was a tad “cooler” but still warm! The volunteers helped to get 2 beds weeded and 3 beds planted. Bed A02 got an assortment of peppers, 7 Hatch, 9 Cal Wonder & 7 Jalapeño. Bed C01 got 25 Giallo planted and bed D01 was planted with 19 Gilboa peppers! Our Friday volunteers also helped to place cages on beds A02 & A03!
Saturday afternoon shift got busy planting as many of our pepper plants they could! Bed D02 got 10 Thai Dragons, bed AB34 got 45 Jimmy Nardello, bed M11 got 9 Revolutions and bed M09 got 9 Sweet Sivri as well as 13 Jalapeños planted in them! They also weeded out bed D02, added cages to L03 and prepped bed L04 for future plantings!
Last week was HOT! You all showed up though and got what was needing to be done, DONE! So many thank you’s to all of you for coming out to help us continue getting the produce out to the pantries for our neighbors
Take care
Lori
