Gentle Notes

Folks,


Two things to please remember -- oops, a third --


1. Stay in your plot. No walking in your neighbor's plot, even if they haven't planted. I've had several people mention they've seen plot neighbors sitting or standing in their plot while weeding.


2. When you weed, put the pulled up plants in your walkways or in the wire compost bins along the east and west fences. DO NOT throws weeds in the walkways -- I will throw them right back in your plot! Put them in the wire compost bins, please.


And...


3. Please do not put trash in the brown compost bins on the south fence, or piled along any fence. I have boxes from 98 pepper plants at the south gate, because I'm deciding how to use them in my plot, and someone put their recycling on top of them. Even if you see someone else leave the stuff out -- don't do it yourself. Put it in the trash bin in the garden, or in the trash bins by the back door of the Heritage Center.


About the brown bins -- I'm going to be inviting gardeners to use those bins for food scrap composting, so keep your eyes open for a blog post about it.


Thanks!

Friday Night Notes

Gorgeous afternoon in the garden today! Some notes --


*WATERING:  I will be watering Saturday at 3am -- just about 20 minutes, a light watering. Last week, when I watered that amount, the garden looked soaked at 8:30am and dry on the top inch 90 minutes later, so don't be fooled if you arrive in the afternoon and it looks like we didn't water.


* FIELDS: The fields next to the garden have been planted, so please do not walk across them.


* STAFF IN THE GARDEN-- I'm holding a garden interpreter volunteer on Sunday, so soon you should be meeting garden volunteers at the demo plot. They'll be helping us to maintain the demo plot, as well as greeting visitors, answering gardener questions, and reducing pilferage by their presence.


* Speaking of which, I know a lot of you have gotten to meet STEPHANIE-- she's been a terrific addition in her first two weeks. She's mostly scheduled for afternoons on Tue-Thur, also on Saturdys and Sundays. I've gotten a few gardeners asking if I'm no longer around, since they've seen more of Stephanie, but that's not the case -- we try to schedule our hours so we overlap at least once a week, while providing increased coverage in the garden.


* Last note -- PARKING. I hate to mention it again, but we're having a real problem with gardeners parking on the circle drive, coming up onto the grass, and blocking vehicles. One gardener left a car parked squarely in the middle of the circle drive, blocking a visiting school bus of kids. Today I saw 4 cars parked up on the grass -- 2 gardeners, 2 visitors -- and the trash truck was delayed getting through the circle. And I've heard that gardeners are parking on the grass or in the circle drive during times when the Heritage Center isn't open, and have told people it doesn't matter then.


Here's the deal: there's only one place for you all to park, and the staff at Wagner Farm expects you to follow the rule -- across the street. The majority of gardeners are following this rule -- but I hear about every one who doesn't.


See you in the garden!

I saw a lot of this in the garden this weekend.

Plots have been widened, and other notes

Ok, so I said we were only going to widen the east and west plots this morning -- we also did the center plots, since Andres had time.


I'm about to head into the garden to reinsert corner stakes. I apologize if any plants, stakes or supplies were moved or harmed during the tilling. If you're out there before I get back out, please return your stakes to their rightful position or wait for me to do it.


The grass that was tilled up should be brown by tomorrow -- feel free to rake it out of the way and plant in the newly-tilled areas, but put any tilled up grasses, etc. in the compost bins along the fence, not in the walkways.
Some notes:


1. I've seen more than 8 gardeners park in and around the circle drive this weekend already, and not just for drop-off. Folks, you just can't do this. Even if you see another car parked in the drive or on the grass, it's not allowed for you guys. If you're doing a drop-off, stay on the pavement, at least.


2. Please keep all supplies, including straw, in your plots when you're not here. I had to move a lot of straw off the walkways for mowing today -- I apologize if I put it on things you've planted.


3. I'm noticing a lot of tomato plants being planted right at the edge of plots, either next to other plots or right by the walkways. This is going to be a problem. Tomato plants, unless seriously and routinely pruned, will get wide to the tune of 2-3'. Anything overlapping your neighbor's plot lines is technically theirs to harvest, and anything hanging over the walkway may get mowed.


4. Last note about mowing -- please do not enter the garden when it's closed. Even if it's to drop off a few things, even if it's just for a moment.


Thank you.

Additional tilling on Sunday

During mowing on Sunday, we're going to extend the west and east plots by tilling the area between the irrigation posts along the length of the plots. Stephanie, our intern, removed the corner stakes along the east side of the west plots, and the west side of the east plots, to make this easier tomorrow. I'll replace the stakes tomorrow around 11am.