Preparing for Spring

The warm weather and the promise of new crops make it a great time to spend some hours in the garden with friends. At our workday today we were busy with many early spring tasks including cutting back dead plants, pruning the bay laurel to remove suckers and crossing branches, weeding, mulching, and topping up raised beds with compost.  The Forest Garden Rangers (our new name)—or was it Edible Forest Rangers (probably not)—planted buckwheat, peas, and hurricane lilies in the edible forest garden.  Kwan was busy clearing and creating beds for pollinator plants.  Today he planted a large bed of dianthus.  

Our gardeners are making plans for spring planting and already have stem lettuce (Celtuce), radishes, and fava beans growing as well as sugar snap peas and other season-spanning varieties.  The mustards and other winter greens are still thriving despite some freezing temperatures the last few weeks. 

Plans are under way to ramp up our container gardening to demonstrate what can be grown in a small space,  and our VegShed is undergoing renovations thanks to Glenn Berman.  

It was a good day in the garden   

Evelyn and Peter are sifting
compost to top up garden beds

First radish harvest from 
Hugelkultur bed

Waiting for sweet potato shoots
to appear

Keep your eye on this
space—home to our 
upcoming patio garden

 VegShed upgrades under way

 

Red Mustard

Several Mustard Varieties
Good to eat and good
for the soil

Stem Lettuce—Leaves and thick
Crisp stems are delicious

Peggy planted White Narcissus
(Tazettas) around the redbud
installed in memory of
Larry Lesko