Happy Monday everyone,
Many thanks to all of you who made it out to help in the garden last week. We had some chilly mornings that bloomed into some hot afternoons. Our regular volunteers had a ton of help this week from teams from Sandia, Workday, Ross and the Pleasanton NCL class of 2025 plus members of Boy’s Team Charity and students from Dublin Valley High’s Transition class.
Together we harvested 1,086 pounds of fresh produce to share with OHK, Culinary Angels and our local food pantries to serve our neighbors in need. YAY!
We also kept working to move the garden into the fall by gleaning, weeding and planting 893 sq. feet of bed space. To be exact we added about 4,500 pounds of compost and organic fertilizer to feed the 550 peas, 5,310 beets and 7,200 carrots we direct sowed into the prepared beds. In about three weeks we will be putting out seedlings that grow up from the 1,344 seeds we started Saturday.
We harvested so much winter squash (441 pounds if you are counting) on Saturday that we had to reorganize the shed to make room for all of them. We also cleared and set up the site for our 2020 tomato cage pyramid and started filling it.
We also were able to start converting all the plant material from the beds we gleaned into 144 cubic feet of compost. Many thanks to the gleaners who took the time to cut the vines into little tiny pieces to enhance the microbial action on them.
A big shout out to the compost making team for mixing that 8,480 pounds of wet compost components! Yes, wet compost weighs about 1,600 lbs/cubic yard and you all mixed about 5.3 cubic yards of it! Wonder why you were stiff Sunday? Now you know.
The garden is making rapid progress into the fall crops because of your efforts! I now feel confident that because of you all, we will be able to continue providing our neighbors in need fresh healthy vegetables all year round.
As always, I am indebted to all of you and send you all my sincere gratitude. Fertile GroundWorks could not do all we do without wonderful volunteers like you. You are all truly amazing human beings. THANK YOU!!! for enabling us to TEACH, GROW, and GIVE.
I do hope that you all will be able to come back and see how your efforts helped the garden to grow and change with the seasons.
Until next we meet, please do take care of yourselves.
Happy gardening everyone.
With sincere gratitude and hugs,
Brenda
