A Few Helping Hands
Friends,
Much like the Four Strangers post I wrote a little while ago, I am delighted to report that we have had many visitors to the garden over the last week. It truly seems that the garden is beginning to represent a place where people can come to learn about good food grown well.
Last Friday, I was lucky to be joined in the garden by a few members of the Haverford Garden Initiative (HGI). Though it is certainly not the most pleasant of tasks, we engaged in a thorough weeding of the entire plot and removed the deer fencing that once surrounded the original garden. With the help of a collinear hoe (a.k.a. weeds’ bane), we assaulted weedy strongholds that once cowered behind the stalwart ramparts of the fence. At the end of the day, the garden looked decidedly refreshed and neat.
On Sunday, the normal gardeners received the help of a group on non-HGI-affiliated students in the planting of a new set of seedlings. Since we had already exhausted the seedlings we raised in the campus greenhouse, I had made a trip to a local garden store to pick up a set of lettuces and some herbs. Back on campus, five other students and I descended on the garden to plant our new friends, to harvest a few peas, and to unexpectedly find several huge cucumbers
hiding beneath the leaves of our once gnarly cuke plants.
All in all, I am very happy with how the garden looks and how the project is progressing. That said, without the help and sincere interest of my fellow students, this adventure could never have happened.
Last but not least, I wanted to mention that I will be going on vacation later this week and will not be back until late next week. In lieu of blog posts, I am going to embed an extensive photo gallery below. I invite you to see our garden’s progress firsthand. Otherwise, you might want to take a look at the wiki we have created for the garden on wikidot.com. It is a work in progress, but we hope it will one day serve as the teaching tool that prepares novice gardeners for their time in the Haverford Garden.
More news on the proposal writing to come later next week. Thank you all for your continued interest.
Best,
Andrew
