Blog Post October 12-14, 2012
Holly, Caitlin and Brandon

Friday, October 12, 2012:

A beautiful day to start off an otherwise rainy weekend garden maintenance practical. We reviewed our tasks, asked questions while we could, and took many notes when special instructions were given. As we reviewed our tasks, we began to develop a work plan for the weekend by prioritizing what work could be done in the most efficient manner. We did not know that our plan would soon have to be revised; while circle checking the Kubota tractor, we discovered that the lights were not working properly. This is a great example of why circle checking all equipment before use is very important. To maintain our goal of efficiency, we began weeding and editing the Woodland Garden while the lights on the tractor were being repaired.

A photo of the Woodland Garden in progress.

Saturday was a soaking wet day, which was disheartening for us but good for the conifer garden. With winter approaching the conifers need to be supercharged so we set up a sprinkler to start the process. Supercharging ensures that the trees are at their maximum water holding capacity which will prevent a moisture deficit when the bright winter sun causes moisture loss from the leaves. In the afternoon it began to rain heavily so we turned the sprinkler off and let nature continue the supercharging.

Photo of the sprinkler set up.

            The rest of Saturday was spent tidying up the conifer garden and weeding the Woodland garden. In the conifer garden we removed weeds from the concrete pathways and did a quick weeding of all the beds.

Photo of the conifer garden during clean up.

In the woodland garden we continued to weed and edit and significant progress was made in shaping the garden up. By the end of the day both the conifer and woodland garden were ready to be mulched.

            The top priority for Sunday was getting the mulch down on the Woodland and conifer gardens. However when we were hooking up the trailer the battery began to smoke so it was deemed unsafe to operate. This meant that mulching was off the table for the day so Holly and Caitlin continued to weedand edit the Woodland garden. It consisted of final touch ups and going over the work that had been done to ensure that everything was complete.  The weeding and editing of the Woodland garden was the most time consuming aspect of the weekend but the garden is shaping up nicely.

Meanwhile, Brandon worked on cleaning up the compound by line rimming overgrown weeds and disposing ofunusable concrete .After lunch, Caitlin and Brandon unloaded the trailer which was full of weeds and debris from the previous two days’ work. Due to the malfunctioning trailer electronics, the weeds and debris were unloaded by hand.

Once work was complete, final clean up was performed. All equipment was washed down including hand tools,  and the backpack leaf blower was used to clear all paths in the Woodland and conifer gardens.  During clean up, the bulb boxes were put on the soil in the holding area with landscape fabric underneath them. Upon performing a final check we discovered that someone had ripped off the branches of the Cersistree that was planted earlier during the weekend.  Hardly any foliage is remaining on the tree