MG-SEEDS GARDEN UPDATE, ETC.

Some progress!  On Saturday 6/29, four of us volunteers made some progress toward getting our demonstration garden going.  We decided on 5 ½ inch wide lightweight red cedar deck boards and some leftover white cedar boards for our 3 x 12 and 3 x 8 foot growing beds.  Why only 3 feet wide?  For kids and “vertically challenged” adults like me to reach easily to the centers.  Why only 5 ½ inches high? For economic purposes, and because we want to nurture the existing soil rather than hauling in “topsoil.”  Here are the first 6 of our planned 11 growing beds.  Still lots to be done!

Thanks to the generosity of one of our “neighbor” gardeners from the community garden near ours, we now have our first plants growing—we were gifted with several trays of bush bean plants (upper right, above)!  I’ve never started beans indoors for transplanting, but if these do well, I might try a few next spring to get an early start.  Today I watered them well and worked a little kelp meal in around them, hoping to start improving our soil’s low potassium level and add some other much-needed nutrients.

Picked peas in my small home garden this morning.  The good news: just over a gallon (~3 ½ lb) in the shells from about 10 square feet, and very sweet and tender.  The bad news: this is the main picking, as there are few new blooms and the plants are showing the effects of the warm dry weather of the last couple weeks.

Another item I find of continuing interest:  If you haven’t heard of “Carter’s Compost,” please see Carter’s latest update at: 

http://us6.campaign-archive1.com/?u=e6249eeb2dc0166be0dfa93f5&id=5e4511de4c&e=4aeb5ac5ce.  It’s not often that adults can look to kids as great role models, but here’s a worthy one.  My wife and I were privileged to meet Carter while visiting one of Traverse City’s new school garden projects earlier this year; this kid is for real!