Gary D, our Chief Gardener, two garden interns and a handful of volunteers somehow managed to get 13,216 pounds of produce to the Thurston County Food Bank – in spite of a record breaking heat wave and drought conditions.
For two years rabbits have ravaged the garden in early spring – in spite of our best efforts to discourage them. Even so, most of the green beans and broccoli survived and ultimately thrived. Covid prevented any field trips this past spring – children usually plant many of our crops! We are hoping to restart that program again in 2022. The 5 yards of spring garden mix which usually puts a fresh layer of nutrients on our beds was contaminated with mustard seed. This became very obvious as soon as we used a small amount of it.
Activity begins in March. If you know how to grow plant starts, if you enjoy weeding, planting seeds, weeding, digging rows for potatoes, weeding, laying irrigation lines, weeding, planting carrots, weeding, shoveling mulch, weeding, harvesting, – did I mention weeding? The majority of help that is needed throughout the summer is weeding!
Beginning in late June, we harvest three mornings a week and help is very much appreciated during that time. Gary D oversees all activity in the garden and directs all volunteers. If you are interested in becoming a garden volunteer please contact Gail Frare, Garden Coordinator at gatofrare@comcast.net or call 360-870-6267.
Please enjoy below video and images from summer 2021 in the garden.
Hover mouse over below pictures to see captions and click on below pictures to expand them.
