The Garden Project: Chapter 4--Getting our Hands Dirty

A couple days later (we were exhausted and needed a few days rest before continuing) a couple of us gathered again in the garden with one mission: GET THE SEEDLINGS INTO THE GROUND! They were sitting so lonely in their little seedlings trays and were crying to become part of mother earth! We started with the herbs because we already had an existing herb garden with sage, lavendar, parsley, and chives (returned from last year in full bloom) so we added herbs in between those plants. The basil though we planted with the tomatoes because it is classic to find the two harmoniously growing together. We planted all of the brassica together (kale, chard, broccoli, and collards) and the tomotoes were given their own beds (they like to compete for nutrients, so we spaced them out and allowed plenty of room for growth).

And then we did all that we could do: we watered them daily and waited...and waited...and waited for everything to grow.

The Garden Project: Chapter 3--The Renovations!

While I am a bit late in submitting chapter 3 to this epic tale of the Slow Food Garden, I still feel it is important to enlighten you on all of the progress that has been made since I last wrote.

After researching where to buy all of the materials needed for these garden renovations, we were able to submit that funding request to the SGA and it was approved! Full speed ahead! We had a specific quantity of wood to pick up from Home Depot...and the grounds crew on campus was nice enough to pick it up for us rather than having it delivered for some outrageous fee. It was dropped off one day and we realized that it was the WRONG SIZE!!! Rather than panicking though, I made a few phone calls, and the carpenters at school agreed to come to the garden and cut the wood to our specifications. They did a fabulous job and after that was out of the way, we decided to create an event on facebook to bring in a bunch of people for the renovations. (PS: If you ever want a group of people to find out about an event, post it on Facebook. It works. It really does!)

After ripping out the old rotted boards from the garden, a large crew of us gathered to build new boxes. We had about 20 people show up throughout the day, which was much more than we anticipated! Many hands really do make light work. I got to play with the powerdrill!! After 7 hours of hard work and sweat (it was the first hot and sunny day we had after 5 days of rain), the boxes were built and put into place. The garden already looked brighter and happier! What we had done earlier was take the existing dirt out of the boxes so that we could build trenches for the boxes to sit it (more stable that way) so our next task was to re-fill these boxes. But like I said before about many hands....as one box was complete, we would move it into the garden and a crew would start filling the boxes. It was a very smooth running operation that allowed me to stand back for a second and observe the music and harmony occurring that one fine day.

Alexis arrived with the seedlings of all sorts--herbs such as mint, basil, oregano, lavender, lemon verbena and vegetables such as tomatoes (galore!), zucchini, yellow squash, peppers, swiss chard, broccoli, kale, collards, and some beautiful sunflower seedlings. We could not wait to put these into the ground and watch them grow!!

And that concludes the first part of renovations!!