September 26^th to 28^th, Bryan & Courtney

 

Friday September 26^th 2014

We arrived early, 7:30am, and soaked in the crisp autumn morning.  At 8:00am Lucas gave us the ropes of the facilities, which included security as well as our instructions for the day. 

There was initial confusion on our part when it came to the circle-check with the unfamiliar RTV; however, it was quickly resolved and after adding some air to the RTV tires, we jumped right to work!

 

 

We continued on from where our classmates left off, working on the large hatchery bed. This included raking and plucking out the newly starting weeds while also popping out the more mature ones that were missed, including the deeply rooted dandelions to the slithering Creeping Charlie.

The one thing to remember about weeds is that they are unbiased when it comes to where they grow. While they don’t easily start among shade and the roots of other plants, it does not mean that they won’t try or succeed at doing so! If those areas during weeding are left unchecked the old farmer adage “One head of ignored Thistle equals to 5 years of thousands more” would soon ring true. A scratching from the sharp garden Miscanthus when checking underneath their shade is far less painful than the idea of having to come back to remove the next generation of missed weeds.

 

 

While weeding, we also took care to avoid mistaking the late growing annuals such as Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana sylvestris) and Annual Verbena (Verbena bonariensis) for weedy foes. The fate of both species will be for their seeds to be collected so that they can be used even after the garden is renovated next season. While the verbena’s spherically arranged flowers reminded us of their presence, the tobacco for the most part was harder to notice since their basal flowerless forms had resemblance to plantain to the untrained eye. It would seem that the colder summer this year has made the tobacco slower than usual, so hopefully this hotter weekend will help them reach flower-hood before frost.

 

 

After we removed the weeds, we set to the task of redefining the edge of the garden bed. While some areas were easy to reshape, the areas where it should’ve been straighter but weren’t, couldn’t be entirely adjusted. Hopefully, it may be fixed during the garden’s renovation when that time comes.

 

After that completion, Lucas came to us to give us our instructions for the weekend which included watering any thirsty potted plants around the gardens before we leave for the day. We watered the thirsty hanging baskets flowers and various potted shrubs. In the end, after watering the plants, cleaning up, and wrapping up, we ended up calling our driver on the cellphone and left at 5:30pm. While this was a later time than we had planned, a little better time management should fix that for the next time.

 

Saturday September 26^th 2014

 

 

We arrived to work at 7:45 and set to work at weeding the small hatchery flowerbed. The worst of the weeds were Canada Thistles, Bindweed, and twitch grass, which were not only abundant but their fragile runners had to be carefully removed to prevent them from reestablishing in the garden. There was an unusual plant in the bed which we suspected as a weed, though due to its eccentric globe-like seedheads we decided to leave alone until we were sure it was a weed. After the bed had been weeded, we emptied the RTV of the weeds, and checked on the plants at the hoop-house for water.  After which, we had a short break at 10:45.

Upon returning to the bed to give the finishing touches, we were surprised to find the suspected weed blooming to reveal that it was instead a malva-type annual. We cultivated and raked the bare garden bed ground and then finished off with trimming the edges as the edge itself was still in top shape.

 

 

With that completed, we moved on to the empty pine needle bed and completed weeding and re-raking the natural mulch by the time Pascoe arrived at 12:30. Shortly after, he led us to the hoop-houses to show us how to make use of the sprinkler systems which we left on during our lunch break at 1pm. After finishing lunch, we returned to the hoop-houses to shut off the sprinklers, watered the plants that were out of the reach of the system, and then returned to the entrance to weed the larger pine needle bed.  Despite the softness of the ground like the first bed, the clay soil was much more apparent and roots of both dead and alive trees intertwined under the ground with the weeds.  This made it much harder to fork out and remove all of the roots of the weeds within. We battled on against the tree roots and weeds and got through one third of the pine needle bed by 4:00pm.

 

In the time remaining, we went to the tool shed to detach the wagon from the RTV, and while one of us emptied the RTV of weeds at the compost, the other one got the tools out of the wagon to be readied for washing.  After we met up and washed the tools, put them in place and signed them back in, we once again went our separate ways, with one using the weed blower on the garden paths and the other cleaned up the potted Brugmansias readying it to be moved. After the leaf blowing was done, we worked together to carefully move the pots up and down the steps and rolled them into the carport.

 

We divided ourselves for the final time, with one going to the hoop-house to water any missed plants and the other one used the watering cans to water the urns and various planters on the property. With that work day said and done we packed up and called Lucas to sign out at 5:10pm.

 

Sunday September 27^th 2014

 

 

We arrived in another fresh crisp morning at 7:55am and went to collect the tools and check the hoop-houses while getting the weeding buckets. We continued onto the second larger pine needle bed, working out the Canada Thistles, dandelions, and miscellaneous weeds. On the way through, we also trimmed out the dead branches off of the nearby Larch trees. After working through half of the weeding of the said garden, we went to the hoop-houses to empty the RTV of weeds, checked the hoop-houses again, and then took a break at 10:20am.

 

After that, we returned to the bed and pruned the ninebark bush of its dead wood, the best we could, and we continued weeding the majority of the thistles out of the bed. With that said and done, we moved onto a third Pine Needle bed and weeded out the few dandelions, thistles, and pokeweed from it. We pushed ourselves a little further and started partway with weeding the viburnum seedlings from the tall Berberis and Juniper bushes before taking our lunch break. Before the break ended, we got to witness some interesting games happening at the Graduate BBQ.

 

 

Returning to the spiny shrubs, we proceeded with removing the Viburnums out of there the best we could. We then took the various branches and wood from the Pine Needle bed and moved it to the wood chipping pile, followed by putting the Viburnum seedlings into the compost pile.

 

 

With that, we had a final hoop-house water check, and placed the weeding/tilling tools into the toolshed to wash later on. We collected the tender Pelargoniums, Begonias, and Curry plants from the garden beds to be divided and potted, so we split apart with one of us trimming and potting up the uprooted plants while the other cleaned the tools, putting them away as well as the RTV.

 

For our last go, we watered the newly potted tender plants as well as the planters on the property, packed up, called Lucas to sign out and took our leave at 5:30pm.