Plants on the Ground

OK, big progress from one week to the next. The PennWell Community Garden is now mostly cleared, and partially planted. Thanks to the starter plants purchased by our group (and they were some well-chosen plants, too... well done there), and some donations from Dana Springer, we now have some sweet peppers, some slicer tomatoes and some yellow and zucchini squash plants. Have a look!

Also, and perhaps more interesting since it will benefit us for future seasons, we have a better connection to water! Our lovely building management crew this morning finished installing a farm-style water faucet within close range of the garden so that a hose of just about any normal length should be able to water the entire bed without the need for big spools or a large collection of hoses.

I heard last week from Randy that they would be working on this soon, but I wasn't expecting it to happen this soon. In fact, it's working right now. So please offer your thanks to the building crew the next time you see any of them — on behalf of our grateful little band of gardeners. This will make caring for our crops so much easier.

So, there's a lot happening right now. As for me, I plan to put some seeds in the ground and finish clearing out the garden later this week, just as soon as I can come to work in a pair of jeans and non-dressy shoes.

I really enjoyed helping get the bed ready for planting over the past couple of weeks. Sure, it was a little weird at first packing shovels and mattocks into my mid-sized sedan, and splitting time between my cubicle and a weed-choked rectangle of dusty soil, but it was also a welcome break from my usual day filled with SEO terms and hyperlinks.

Maybe I looked a little funny doing it, but getting in a little manual labor in a job that usually doesn't require it is rewarding. Sure, you get tired, but it's a good tired. One of the big reasons why I like gardening is how much hard work it requires. It's not for everyone, but I enjoy it.

The work from here on out will be a little bit easier, although I worry about weeds coming back. I learned that there is a thin layer of fabric underneath our foot or so of soil, but it's probably falling apart by now and grass will try to find sunlight on the other side. So we have to plan to keep the weeds down with some kind of mulch. Aside from finishing the weeding and planting some seeds, the other thing I'm thinking of is mulch. It'll be good for the plants, and it will make what weeds we do encounter easier to deal with.

So that's where I'm at. Please don't hesitate to comment, e-mail, or just grab me in the hallway so we can go over what everyone else would like to accomplish next.

PS: Dana mentioned that we might need a few tomato cages as our crops start reaching skyward. I thought this was a good idea for our tomatoes and maybe even our squash and cucumber (if any are planted). They would help us conserve space by growing our plants up and not out, help us harvest vegetables easier, and prevent foliar diseases by keeping the leaves out of the dirt. Unfortunately mine are in such poor shape I couldn't think to donate them, but maybe someone else knows how we could get some.