Commence gardening!

It's garden season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We have a 10' x 15' plot in the Penn State Center for Sustainability Community Garden this year. Saturday was our first work day in the garden, where we helped mark the new plots (including our own), ripped up some old fencing and moved some compost.

photo by Doodle

Sunday we decided to head back to the garden to work just on our plot. We started laying a rock path along the center of our plot. In doing that, J realized there was a large rock buried ~6" below the surface of the soil. We started digging and found a lot of large shale pieces.

J excavating. Photo by Doodle.

We finally got most of the rocks in that quarter of the garden excavated, and filled the hole with dirt and compost. J finished the path and we used the extra rocks to surround our plot.

Our garden after 5 hours of work. Note the stone fairy house in the lower right corner and the beautiful path laid by J.

We were at the garden for five hours yesterday and the kids did great. They love being outside. Doodle explored some wooded areas near the garden, which she loved until her unfortunate discovery of a nettle patch. (I learned she had found the nettles when I saw her stomping on something repeatedly. I asked what she was doing and she told me "Mom, this mean plant zapped me!" Yep, she was stomping on the nettles.) She's now a bit more wary of venturing into the woods, but hopefully we'll get her back in there soon, better able to identify and avoid nettles and poison ivy.

We are planning to grow: herbs, tomatoes, strawberries, onions, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, tomatoes, peas, tomatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, tomatoes, ground cherries and perhaps some more tomatoes.

Hooray for gardening season!