Transplants and Potatos

Last Saturday I spend some  more time in the BUGS garden. Before arriving I was a bit concerned because weather.com was calling for rain, and I even packed my water resistant jacket. Although, I never had to even get it out of the car. Even when I arrived at 10 a.m. it a beautiful day, and I never saw any rain in the three hours I was there. Most of us had our jackets off within the hour.

 First thing we did we plant leeks, red onions and yellow onions from transplants. It was really relaxing just placing little plants in a row and covering the roots. Throughout the fairly long process we all chatted about our environmental class (mostly the test we just took), our majors, what we want to do in the future, where we were from, why we were interested in gardening and the upcoming Earth Week. It was a really nice time planting, chatting and enjoying the sun.

 While a few of us planted the onions and leeks others started on the potato planting. It was interesting to watch them cut up the seeding potatoes to bury in the ground.

 

While all of the service learners were planting Mike, the garden coordinator, laid irrigation around the garden for easy watering all summer. Irrigation tubing was also laid with the potatoes before burying them to ensure they get enough water all summer long.

Before we left we talking about the raspberry bushes, the black berry bushes, and where to find Huckleberries. So of course I left hungry, again. Being out in the garden and think about fresh produce all day, inspired me to head to the store and buy some vegetables to make my own homemade veggie soup.

Planting!

The service time at the BUGS garden started at 10 a.m. The first 45 minutes of the morning was spent having a lesson on everything we needed to know about planting seeds in the garden. I learned all about the ideal temperatures for many crops to germinate, and how today we would focus on the cold-weather crops. These crops could germinate and survive in colder temperature. We went over the different seeds, the spacing each needed, the depth at which they needed to be placed, and how to prep the beds.

First, we prepped the beds. This was done by removing any large rocks from the surface, removing any weeds, and raking over the beds to even them out.

We then spent the rest of the time putting seeds into the beds. Some of the seeds need to only have one row in each bed like the cabbage. Other crops could have two rows of crops in each bed. This day we placed in the peas, beets, carrots, radish, turnips, spinach, lettuce and cabbage.

While we did this we all had a lot of fun talking. Usually the topics led to what delicious things we knew how to make from all the veggies we were planting that day. That defiantly made me excited about getting my own garden planted. Through out the day we also talked a lot about many of the things we learned in the chapter about food and agriculture. We discussed knowing where out food comes from before we eat just anything. Also, increasing our vegetable consumption and reducing our meat consumption was a topic of interest among us.