Blog:  May 20^th – May 23^rd

This week at Fanshawe College:

Tuesday started with a new area to beautify at the J-Sub courtyard in preparation for June graduation.  Upon gathering all of our tools from the tool room, we grabbed the RTV and made our way over.  We began our day with routine garbage picking, weeding, and some crash courses in how to edge garden beds…which is very tricky without some sort of string line to follow and proper use of the half-moon edgers!  Not long after we got the call that the transport truck full of our lovely mulch was here and to come and watch the process of it being dumped in Lot #8.  After getting stuck (just a little) on the wet lawn it was a success, and the mulch began to tumble out of the trailer!  It was a sight to behold…smelling wonderful, steamy and very warm to the touch.  After all of this we received fabulous instruction from Hillary as to how to load the trailer with the John Deere…without hitting the trailer of course!  With trailer full we returned to J-Sub courtyard to continue our work for the remainder of the day.

The rest of the week consisted of more trailer loads of mulch…we managed to get quite a lot of it put on the beds but there is still so much to go! Mulch not only beautifies the garden but also is a necessity in order to keep weeds down, retain soil moisture, and moderate soil temperatures.  We received a lesson from Hillary on how to properly edge a tree well with half-moon edgers and string.  Edging should be done three times per year as properly edged garden beds add a nice clean line to the bed and reduce the need for any sort of plastic edge restraints.  Thursday we tended to our gardens and captured a pic of one of Fanshawe’s many cute (but pesky!) little groundhogs.  Friday was back to J-Sub courtyard and more beautification for the graduation in June…and that was our week at Fanshawe