Troop 110 had a big day in the garden

On Saturday March 22d, Stanley Wu, with the assistance of his Boy Scout Troop 110 Beverly Hills, installed fruit trees and "intelligent" pest repelling shrubs around our brand new beautiful fence. The troop also helped me to complete the raised beds by hooking up some of the irrigation and topping off the beds with soil.

I continued working on my latest theory for keeping grasshoppers and birds away from the young vegetables: it's called a "low hoop house" and involves hanging pvc hoops over pieces of rebar, and then draping the pvc with lightweight crop cover fabric. This will remain in place (I hope there are no awful wind storms) until the vegetables have bloomed, then you need to roll back the fabric so that the flowers can be pollinated.

While the scouts worked on the fruit trees and shrubs, my group of faithful volunteers planted 6 beds with tomatoes, basil, marigolds, summer squash, lettuce, cucumbers, carrots, radishes and beets. Thank you Steve, Jean, Skip, Christie, Lisa and Judy. The High School ecology club, including my niece Charlotte, planted 2 beds with a traditional American Indian combination: corn, beans and pumpkins. The corn stalks support the bean vines, the roots of the beans supply an extra source of nitrogen to the corn via their mycorrhizal exchange system, and the spiny leaves of a pumpkin vine discourage predators from raiding the corn!

Jessica from Armstrong Garden Centers was on hand to show the scouts how to properly plant the trees, which were a gift to us from Armstrong!  I will be in the garden on Wednesday morning around 10:00. Come up, you can help water the new plants.