We had another (the third) great work party on Sunday, Sept 20th. After having a successful summer growing, I felt a school garden at SELS was a go. If you remember, this past summer was a trial to see how much maintenance and how successful a garden could be in that location. In the cooler mountain climate, a good location for a garden is very specific and can vary within 50 ft based on buildings, trees, and any pattern of a microclimate. Though the SELS garden location gets a fairly stiff breeze, it gets amazing sun exposure all day. Two of the top priorities will be to harness the sunlight and protect against the cool nights and the drying wind.

Another priority in the SELS garden location, like almost any other spot in Truckee, is dealing with the poor native soil. Tahoe soil could have lots of shale, granite, and crushed pine needles. As my neighbor once said, ‘It’s a bunch of rocks with some crushed pine needles holding it together.” A great way to deal with this is to NOT deal with it, and just put raised beds on top filled with healthy, nutrient-rich soil. After reaching out, Seamus Gallagher and Gallagher Construction very willingly donated a number of cedar boards that we used for the box portion of the raised bed. With help from Brent and Jason, we cut and staged the boards for 5 raised beds. 

 

We’re saving the final steps for these raised beds for the next work party on October 3rd. We’ll be adding netting to the bottom (to prevent critters from digging underneath) and adding PVC hoops (that we can cover to make mini hoop houses) and filling them with the aged horse manure that we got from Piping Rock stables.

Remember the straw bales we set up in May? These housed some great plants over the summer: sungold tomatoes, herbs like mint, sage, and rosemary, squash, lettuce, and kale. I also tested two raspberry plants in pots which grew some good juicy berries. We planted one of these beds in August, and did another bed at today’s work party.

I’d also like to try composting at school, but this will be tricky since there’s been bear activity at the dumpsters in that area. An easy, quick, cheap (my top three motivators) way to set up a compost pile is to grab some pallets and screw them together with a corner brace. We set up a double stall and also oriented it to face true south so that it also gets maximum sun. Compost piles here rarely heat up enough to do their work due to our cold nights and winter season. We have these placed and ready for any plants and straw that can be thrown in.

TIP: A great way to jump start your compost pile is to use fresh, hot horse manure which brings up the temperature (when you add enough). The fresh compost also gets its time to age so it’s safe to put into your garden and around plants. Any stable or horse owner is usually happy to give manure away - I just ask and coordinate a time to come get it that works for our schedules. Stables, like Piping Rock, usually have huge piles of fresh and aged manure. Do NOT put fresh manure on your plants - it should age for at least 4-6 months. When fresh it’s too hot and will burn them. When I get manure, I usually get a bit of both and use it in the right spot. And even if you don’t have a truck, you can get bins with tight lids and just stick it in the back of your car.

2015-08-17 11.23.25With the help from Brad Chalstrom and his awesome dump trailer, we have a large pile of aged manure, ready to go into the new raised beds.

 

Our next work party will be on Saturday October 3rd and will run from 9am to noon. We seem to get through all the tasks quickly, so the time is usually shorter than scheduled. We will be putting the raised beds in place, filling them and getting their hoops in place. Come check out how to set these up for your own garden. We’ll also be moving some bales and then using them for one more round of growing – this time for garlic.

Thanks to everyone who came out to help yesterday. We’re building another great component for our school!