The Wonders of Water

This garden was in serious need of some TLC when we arrived today, and boy did we find some great helpers!

Andy, Emily, Kelsey, and I were settling into our traditional garden rhythm (uncurling the endlessly long hose, watering the beds, pulling stray sedge and weeds, inspecting the plants) when who should appear, but some wonderful watering helpers!

Our extremely enthusiastic class came out around 1, and stayed until 1:30, tirelessly watering and weeding to their hearts content. At Campbell Park, the plant beds are all quite new and lacking in a strong nutrient base. We had been discouraged the past couple of weeks at the apparent lack of growth in our seedlings and new plantings. This is largely due to the immense amount of watering needed. We typically water for an hour each time we visit, but this obviously hasn't been enough to really give our plants the boost they need. Today we watered for a record 2 hours straight, and the beds didn't even look muddy! I guess some plants were thirsty...

This week's lesson focused on revisiting the functions of each part of the plant (the flower, stem, leaves, and roots) and a fun game of Simon Says to help us remember. Fitting in with the theme of our work day, we also focused a lot on the benefits of water and weeding! We had a great group of helpers attack some of the sedge on the edges of our beds, and others took turns with the hose and the gardening can.


There are some new plants in our garden as well!  We made sure to especially water last week's planted pineapple, and we just put in some new radishes! Radishes are a fun vegetable in the garden, because they have an incredibly short germination period. We should be able to see some small roots within a few weeks!


Despite all of our watering efforts today, it's going to take a lot more care to reverse some of the effects that lack of water and nutrients has already had on the existing seedlings. Come on cilantro, stay strong!

Well, that's all for today...

Cheers!
Miranda