Happy Wednesday everyone,
YAY RAIN! How sweet it is! It is a little cold too but I won’t complain. Folks from Granada High’s Human Rights Club, National Charity League, the Tzu Chi High School, BSA troop 948 and Global Leadership Initiative for Youth (GLIFY) families all came out to help us regulars. Many thanks to everyone who came out to brave the chill and the wet. We only got a little rain during our Friday shift and no one melted whew!
Five more beds got prepared-we worked until we used up the last 5 cubic yards of compost and just plain ran out of compost-leaving us with 4.5 more beds to go. I will get some more compost today to finish the job this week and then we will plant more fava beans and oats. The beans will add nitrogen and the oat roots will help improve the tilth of the 1 year old sheet mulched beds that gave us 400+ pounds of squash this year.
I am so excited. We got the heirloom barley planted. YAY! Years ago I got 100 seeds each of White Monrovian and Chevalier barley seeds from the USDA seed bank for the Livermore Heritage Guild’s (LHG) garden at Hagemann Ranch. Both these varieties were big Livermore crops back in the 1850’s, and this past summer the LHG gardeners were able to share some seed back with us. It takes a while to expand 100 seeds to enough to share. The barley will take the place of oats in the beds it was sown in and also provide for some yummy soup makings next spring. In addition to the 1,488 barley seeds, we also planted 1,000 beet and radish seeds, and transplanted out the last 300 mustards, broccoli, leeks and celtuce, plus another 200 oninos that the high school couldn’t use. They will grow slowly in the winter cold but we should have early spring crops to harvest.
We didn’t just plant people food this past week. We also finished digging the holes and planted 57 native plants in the western hedgerow. Then we weeded the Northern section of the orchard and had a good time broadcasting native flower seeds in the setting sun on Friday. The pollinators will be fat and happy next spring, thanks to you all! Out in the Southern section of the orchard folks worked their way through our native Pleasanton loam-aka cement- to dig the holes for the six fruit trees that Alden Lane donated. Thanks ZC and GLIFY!
Even with all the digging, weeding and planting going on we were able to give almost 100 pounds of fresh harvest and shed squash and tomatoes with our neighbors in need.
As always, I want to thank all of you for your help in caring for the garden. It truly is a labor of love that gives to our entire community. Fertile GroundWorks could not do what we do without you all. You truly make the garden a wonderful place to be. THANK YOU!
With gratitude,
Brenda
