The First Seeds Are In: Welcome Season 2013!

The full garden crew doesn't  officially start until next week, but we have already been quite busy down at the garden the past couple of weeks!  I don't even know where to start!
 
The sequence of events (what we've been doing to prepare the garden for its fifth season):
1) We tilled in our gorgeous green winter rye
2) We measured and measured....and measured to get our somewhat perfectly straight planting rows and walkways all mapped out with twine on the garden soil
3) Discovered the winter rye didn't appreciate being tilled and decided to re-root itself...
4) Had to till the planting rows a second time (a bit more tricky since we mapped out everything already....ahhhhh)








This brings us up to Wednesday, which was SMC Community Service Day.  Hands down, one of our top favorite days in the garden (okay, 98% of our days in the garden are our favorite; but this one is at the top)!  For the past four years now, the Organic Garden has been one of the sites that staff and faculty can sign up to volunteer on for this day (fyi, the Organic Garden fills up quick, all the spaces were gone within the first 45 minutes of sign-up!  so plan accordingly for next year's service day!)  It's such a treat for us to share the garden with other members of the community.  We've made long-time garden friends and new garden friends each year.

It's always amazing how much work you can get down with many hands in just a few hours.  Here's what the group accomplished: weeded the entire way around the main garden fence - both inside and out, weeded around 300 garlic plants, constructed two 15 feet long snap pea trellises, planted the snap peas and all our spinach, planted our beets and 1 bed of lettuce, and helped to secure the black plastic we have on our pumpkin/sunflower bed to keep the weeds down until we're ready to plant them (if this works, we just saved 3 days of weeding - no joke!).  All this in just a few hours!  With our first seeds sowed into the soil, we can officially say that the Garden Season for 2013 has begun!

Today we also got in all of our onion transplants (5 varieties)!  Make sure to check back in next Friday and see what we get in next week!

To all out there: here's to a wonderful season in the soil ahead!