Each week we will be updating you about new things happening in the teaching garden. I am sure most of us are cooped up in quarantine and can use a little Vitamin N (for nature). Hopefully these updates can provide you with a little taste of spring!
Usually this time of year the teaching garden is working hard to re-build all of our beds with compost and soil. This time of year we also work on setting up irrigation and starting lots of seeds. Due to the circumstances we are a little behind schedule this year but we are still working hard to get things ready for summer! Our first update is about our beautiful garlic. We overwintered our garlic, meaning we planted it last fall and let it grow over the winter. Now it is happily soaking up the spring sun to grow bigger and bigger by the day.
This week we were also able to get our irrigation set up! We water our beds with something called "drip irrigation" In the picture below you can see our hose attached to a timer which is attached to the main line. The main line sends the water to each of the lines that run down the length of the beds. The timer enables us to be able to water consistently and at the best times. We like to water early in the morning that way most of the water is able to be absorbed by the soil and our plants rather than evaporating in the hot afternoon sun.
In the next picture you can see the drip irrigation lines that run down each of our rows. There are tiny little holes running down the line that release water nice and slowly, it drips out which is how it got its name "drip irrigation". We also planted Romance Carrots in this row, how romantic!
Lastly, we planted some Boro Red Beets! In this picture you can also see our beautiful new unheated greenhouse. This greenhouse is heated passively by heat from the sun. The heat from the sunlight is able to travel through the translucent plastic and then gets trapped inside. We don't have doors on this greenhouse yet but its already noticeably warmer inside the greenhouse than it is outside. Once we get the doors on we will be able to house some heat-loving tropical plants inside (like turmeric and ginger).
Thats it for this week! Make sure to check back next week for more updates.