Company

Day 6

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend! Mine was filled with Cherry jam and almond butter. I made jam out of the cherries I picked on Friday and it is pretty tasty! But, the weekend was soon over and back to the garden for me.

I decided to try riding my bike to work today...it's 10.5 miles round trip... But, it wasn't too bad. I think I will try and do it every other day. We'll see how long it lasts though. 

I actually got some new company in the garden today! I was sitting with the carrots, carefully parting the

delicate stems to find those savage weeds and yank them out of my precious produce, when my supervisor and another visitor joined me! He was very enthusiastic about the garden. He quickly grabbed a hoe and got to work on the weeds that had crept between the bell peppers. A veteran came out as well and chatted with me about the recovery program a little bit. He boasted that he was graduating from the program tomorrow and thanked me profusely for my work. He said it was easy to get into your own head when you are in the rehab program and coming outside to the garden was very helpful for him. It was great to hear how the garden was helping the vets out. I wish more would come though. I'm not sure how to encourage attendance but hopefully if I set up some programs people will come. 

In talking to my other participant I found out that the garden hasn't been advertised much to employees at the VA and there have been a few false starts in the past. I think it might be fun to hold a grand opening once the benches and gravel (or mulch depending on a few things) have been put in. That way everyone would know about it and feel welcome to come out and garden. If I could get the local paper to do a story on it too that would be great! We could get some publicity and perhaps potential donations. 

I have been trying to brainstorm ideas for fundraising so that the garden could afford mulch or any other possible necessities. I thought that we could grow seedlings and then sell the extras for a few bucks. However, there isn't really a place for the seedlings to be grown inside. Unless we used the shed where the garden tools are being held right now. However, it is pretty small so I don't know how well that would work. Then I remembered I had been showed a greenhouse at the CC on my tour and was told that it didn't have anything in it. It might be fun to have a program with CC students to take care of the seedlings with the vets. The vets would get to have a companion "on the outside" and we would have a place for seedlings. I don't know well this would really work though. In my head it's cool but it might not work.

Ladybugs are all over the garden! I think that is a good sign. I remember from somewhere that they are supposed to be beneficial. One nearly crawled into my eye though so they can be dangerous!