Gardening in July

This past month has flown by! The garden looks impressive with all its growth! In the beginning of the month, around the drought, we were struggling to keep the Garden alive watering by buckets from the creek. Realizing watering for 6 hours a day was not sustainable, we luckily were allowed to water from the Newell apartment buildings. Since we have been running sprinklers as needed, the garden has really taken off. The seeds sprout remarkably quick with a constant water source. In the future, however, we hope to use a more efficient irrigation system rather than sprinklers.

Since the last time we checked in we have strung our cucumbers and tomatoes and built A-frame trellises for peas. The herb garden and flower garden are fulling planted as well as a large section of pumpkins and gourds that will hopefully peak production around October! Some plants including a lavender bush, daylilies, yucca, and lily of the valley were salvaged from a construction site and are adding to the aesthetics of the garden.

Ongoing projects include weeding and mulching all our beds to help control weed growth and retain moisture in the soil. We have also begun to harvest! Daily we pick squash and cucumbers. The Magda squash and zucchini are our most productive varieties, but we are also getting some summer squash, kambocha, spaghetti, and yellow straight neck.

We are currently in the process of being auditing by Purdy and Sons, who handles all of Sodexo's local purchases. Once we have our shed installed and a wash station that meets regulations we will be good to go to start selling to Sodexo. Rob and I currently have an overload of produce in our own refrigerators and we are looking forward to getting rid of some of it!

This week will are working on making the Garden more visitor friendly, as we anticipate having our first official work party this next week! We are also in the planning stages of our Open House event, tentative date Saturday September 11!

Be sure to check out our pictures!

Stacey and Rob