Hi All,
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving Holiday! We are all definitely thankful for you!
Last week was a short week due to the holiday but we got a lot done in the 2 days we had!
Lots of bed prep going on during Tuesday’s shift. Enrique showed up to help for the week and he started prepping bed AB30 while we started the harvest. About an hour into the shift he had a few volunteers join him to help get it finished prepping with fertilizer and compost AND they planted it as well. 76 cauliflower and 350 onions went in to bed AB30! Thankfully Brenda prepped up 6 batches of fertilizer that morning cause we were going to need it!
The OGs were back in the Orchard keeping up on gopher patrol! RM and the crew have been patrolling the rest of the garden as well. If you see any fresh mounds please alert the guys and they will set out the traps! Last week PB alerted RM as soon as she found one and he went right to the bed setting a trap.
GL showed up and she LOVES prepping beds so she took on bed AB28! A few of our other great volunteers joined her in taking out the weeds and getting that bed prepped with fertilizer and compost. LP got a crew going on gleaning out bed A15 and they continued on to glean out bed AB10 as well! Ryan worked with CL on gleaning out ARB2 of the sweet potatoes we had growing there and one of our OG (Original Gardner) members gleaned out bed M14.
RL and new volunteer NF took on prepping bed K18 for the leeks and onions. They weeded (ALOT), prepped, fertilized and composted. We had leeks in this bed a couple of years ago but it looks like we over harvested them and now we have a new batch out for hopefully the next few years! We also had new volunteer, LP, and her family show up and they helped us glean out bed L01 of all the pepper plants. K07 was also gleaned out of the watermelons that were growing there. Ryan led bed C02 prep and the crew got it planted as well with 36 cauliflower, 30 onions and 50 garlics!
Brenda also picked up the purple cauliflower on Tuesday afternoon!
Wednesday we had a crew of 20 Tzu Chi Foundation students show up to help in the garden! And man did they help!
Brenda & Enrique’s crew of students prepped bed B13 & AB10 with fertilizer & compost AND planted both beds. Bed B13 got 36 cauliflower & 182 onions. Bed AB10 got 40 sprouting broccoli & 260 garlic plants. Lots of watering to do with all the plants they got in the ground!
My crew got the purple cauliflower potted up, 176 plants! JT got bed ARB2 prepped and we helped him to plant 8 cauliflower, 37 bok choy & 70 garlic plants. We split up and JT had his father daughter team help him plant ARB3 with 13 cauliflower & 30 garlic plants. My crew went and planted bed A15 with 54 sprouting broccoli & 134 onions. JT’s crew also went over and started gleaning bed L01 and he was able to get 4/5’s of the bed gleaned out before we called it a day!
JR got some of the students to help glean out bed K06. Long bed and lots of tomato plants, at least 50 of them, to take out! Lance and CL started at the other end of the bed to help the crew complete the task! RL worked with some of the students as well getting the leeks and onions planted that day-100 leeks, 63 onions and 16 broccolis.
Total of plants planted in the ground last week: 1132 plants (cauliflower, broccoli, leeks and onions) that we bought from Valley Transplant and 390 direct sown garlic plants!
We harvested on Tuesday with 250lbs of produce going out to our neighbors for Thanksgiving! MC, EV & NT washed and packed the produce for us that day!
We cannot make this work without all of your contributions. Thank you for always showing up when we need help. Brenda, the Crew and I appreciate the work you all give to the garden week after week, year after year. Thank you 🥰
Take care
Lori
