18 April: a mound of work

On 17 April, Crosstown Tree Service delivered a huge mound of wood chips to Ginkgo. We welcome these chips: they help us to control weeds, to prevent the walkways from getting muddy, to mulch our fruit trees, and to keep the garden looking tidy.

The cherry tree

The following day, Evelyn, Ivy, Karen, and I were joined by a large group of volunteers: NJ, Alex, Stephen, Holly, Grant, and Jaboukie, students from Second City (a.k.a, the Hardest Working Volunteers in Show Business); Courtney, Patricia, and Eduardo from the Palmer House Hilton; and J.J., Clare, Griffon and his mom, and Taylor and his dad.

We set to work. While some of us distributed wood chips throughout the garden, others transferred to beds compost from both our compost bins and the former "dodecahedron" raised bed that will be the site of our new greenhouse. We cleaned up the front garden; tended our hoophouse-covered beds of radishes, peas, and lettuces; organized our seed library; and repaired a rain barrel.

The weather that day was exhilarating: clear and sunny, but with a chill wind. Our ornamental cherry tree was in its brief but dazzling flower. There are, I think, fewer ways better to spend such a day than to work hard, with like-minded people, on a project whose benefits one cannot contest. With all due respect to Mr. Nash, this is certainly cheaper.

At this point, the only things growing in our garden are overwintered garlic in one of our beds and flowers in the front.

Virginia Bluebell

Tulip

More tulip

Garlic

Transplants Begin!

I arrived at the garden on Saturday morning to find these beauties inside the fence.  Such a lovely treat.  These kale, collards, broccoli and tomatoes are the first transplants that Ginkgo has planted this season.

 

A special shout out is in order for the awesome team from the Palmer House Hilton.  These transplant gurus snapped to work by divvying up the labor.  One person to place the plants evenly on the soil, one to dig a hole, one to loosen the roots and pop the transplant in.  I've never seen such a coordinated effort at Ginkgo and I tried to assure them that we weren't task masters, but the team indicated that tight deadlines were their specialty.  Hard working, efficient, and you couldn't ask for a friendlier bunch.  Thanks and thanks!

We missed Chris on round 1 of the group photo, but his efforts shouldn't go unmentioned.  Before embarking on back to back trips around the country to split sides with his improv and responsibly celebrate, Chris added to his track record as a weed annihilation machine and helped to get those transplants in and fences up.

Bobbi-Lee cleaned out our earth machine which was full of the lightest fluffiest compost I've ever handled.  We usually just ignore the bins and focus more on our managed 3 bin systems, but this passive approach broke some high quality trimmings down into the definition of loamy.


Here we are using kale as a border crop to maximize output per bed.  There should be plenty of space to reach in and handle the tomatoes and all we need now are some marigolds to ward off flea beetles.  I can't wait to see these beds all grown up.