Well, goodness. Suddenly it's been nearly a year since the last post -- and what a year! Here are some highlights from the garden:
In early spring, we received another amazing donation of soil from Hoerr Nursery, which enabled us to make progress on our goal of connecting all the individual garden beds into one large plot with mulched footpaths. Otto's Monuments kindly helped us out by using their machinery to help us move the soil to the proper site in the garden.
We used carboard for sheetmulching, laying it out over the patches of grass and weeds and spreading the soil on top. The cardboard will smother most of the weeds, and eventually it will decompose beneath the soil.
In early spring, we received another amazing donation of soil from Hoerr Nursery, which enabled us to make progress on our goal of connecting all the individual garden beds into one large plot with mulched footpaths. Otto's Monuments kindly helped us out by using their machinery to help us move the soil to the proper site in the garden.
We used carboard for sheetmulching, laying it out over the patches of grass and weeds and spreading the soil on top. The cardboard will smother most of the weeds, and eventually it will decompose beneath the soil.
Meanwhile, spring was already well on the move! Our perennial herbs were greening up, the milkweed was growing in stature, and the wildflowers sown last year were making a brilliant comeback.
Mid-June found us wrapping up the distribution of soil (one wobbly wheelbarrow at a time!) and excavating our new paths. Not easy work, but the Chillis came out on top again, of course.
Meanwhile, the garden continued to bloom around us.
In July, we enjoyed harvesting the garlic that had been planted in previous years. We have about three different kinds, though we've lost track of which is which. Oops! Our harvest was quite productive, anyway. There were also bountiful flowers, and many a bouquet brightened the library.
As summer and early autumn progressed, we harvested a rainbow of tomatoes, peppers, and tomatillos, putting the bounty out for library visitors to take home and enjoy.
So even though our dirt-moving and path-establishing projects got us off to a bit of a slow start this year with planting, we ended up with a sinificant amount of food to share, not to mention the fun planting, tending, and watching the garden evolve.
Here's to 2017 and a new year of growing!
Here's to 2017 and a new year of growing!