CLEI garden class visits

The College Eight garden class did some amazing work today. Steve set them to work in cleaning up the back areas 42 through 37 in front of B2 - the area with the three apple trees. They did general weeding and took away all the plants that were withering or weedy. We had a huge amount of green matter for the composting; Mike will be thrilled once the structure is finished. Steve had come on Saturday, spent the morning working on it with five students, and was very optimistic about its completion. While it hasn't reached it yet, I know it is close.

Six students helped Mike attach metal slats to the wood, so that we can put up wooden slats next. On Thursday, he'll probably get the seminar to turn the pile - one more solid turn, at least. The other part of seminar will be dedicated to covercropping the Admin. strip in front of A1 and doing the final covercropping for the GArden.

Once the weeding was complete, they sheetmulched the entire back area, taking infinite care to lay cardboard down around the chocolate mint, pineapple sage, pea plants, and other plants we wished to keep. We ran out of horse manure - that pile that Marley and I made all those months ago no longer exists - so they went to the Mines and brought back rich organic matter from broken down leafmould - the stuff we've been using on all the beds. They put it over the cardboard instead. That's a great thing; now, if we want to, we can covercrop on top of the sheetmulching and give it even more of a standing chance. But that won't be so imperative. Now, that huge area in the Garden is safe from compaction.

A couple of students spread straw around beds 14 and 16, the ones with collards and cabbage. Two more began double-digging the last bed, 2a - I think the moisture level was good. I'd been watering it over the last few days, through the remae. Kept some of the water from evaporating, very happily.

When they left, the Garden looked ...at peace, somehow. Like everything is going to be taken care of. Now ...all that remains are the two milpa beds.