Happy Monday everyone!
I hope everyone had a great weekend. It was a bittersweet one for the garden. First we said goodbye to our outgoing board President Dave David, who has been involved in the garden for the last 10 years and has helped in so many ways, from pulling weeds to raising funds for and helping build all kinds of projects like the new hoop house and the FGW sign and gazebo in the front of the garden. Dave is moving onto a new chapter of his life filled with grandbabies and family in the great NW. We wish him luck and hope he and his lovely wife come to visit the garden whenever they are in Livermore.
I think the universe was sad too. The unexpected cold snap of Tuesday night wreaked havoc in the garden, wiping out about 190 peppers, a lot of the tomatoes in the old fava bean beds and 40 summer squash that just had their fruits starting to form. Most of the basils that were planted with these crops also got wiped out, sigh. The lettuce, winter greens and oregano survived just fine.
The universe takes away but it also gives. We were able to harvest and share 744 pounds of fresh onions, beets and greens for our neighbors.
Plus during the sunny blustery bit of Tuesday morning Workday folks potted up about 200 tomato and 103 eggplant seedlings. We had initially planned for about 96 tomatoes and 48 eggplant. Sometimes it is hard to count to one seed per cell of a six pack. Tuesday we were rejiggering the summer plan but on Wednesday the jiggering was done and we had homes for all those extra seedlings and our sadness was abated. YAY!
So with the help of the Workday team plus teams from YORK, De la Salle HS, Jo Mitchell middle school, Global Leadership Initiative for Youth and Promoting Leadership Among Youth the regulars buckled down changed our planting plan and replaced frozen babies with 198 pepper, 56 eggplants, 104 squash, 21 tomatillo, 45 cucumbers and 70 beans. We had to direct sow a lot of the squash, cucumber and all of the beans, as we had no extra seedlings of them.
On top of all that planting we also harvested our first bunch of seed garlic, 57 pounds of Shandong garlic and got the heads tied up for drying and use next fall. Thanks to YB we also got the leaky center irrigation valves dug out enough to look at them and figure out what to do next. We also managed to get another four beds amended with about 4,700 pounds of compost and fertilizer so they are all ready for planting next week along with the tomato replacement seedlings. Going to be a busy week, but all will be good in the garden.
As always, my sincere and heartfelt gratitude to all of you for everything you do to help the garden be loved and productive and making the world a better place for all of us to live in.
Until next we meet, please do stay safe and keep loving the ones you are with.
All my best
Brenda
PS please do share your favorite recipes for our new cookbook at https://www.fertilegroundworks.org/recipes/
PPS YB, Bruce came out later on Saturday and confirmed that all the joints were glued slip/slip joints.
