Spring Garden Work Party

It is HOT out!

Garden water pump

The hubby and I just got back from our garden’s Spring Garden Work Party.  When you sign up for a plot, you obligate yourself to go to a spring party and fall party to help start up and shut down the garden for the season.  If you can’t make your own garden’s party, you can go to any other garden’s party to meet your requirement.

Our party started at 9am and we immediately got to work cleaning up trash, turning over mulch, weeding, and cleaning up plots from last year.  We got to meet quite a few people and it is very multicultural.  Lev is our “next plot neighbor” and there is also Oksana and her husband a little ways away.  There was an young Australian guy named John, who was from another garden, along with Steve, who’s accent I couldn’t place – he was just there from GE.  LOL, I couldn’t figure that out.  GE is General Electrics, the major employer (or used to be) in Schenectady, and I don’t think Steve actually had a plot, he was just helping everyone out.

Our other “next plot neighbor” didn’t show up, and hasn’t been to his garden at all.  Apparently his name is Walter, but I wonder if he’s going to do anything, or is just waiting till later to start.

We also met Terry, Joe, Marissa, Joan, Sue, Pat, and whole bunch of other people that I can’t remember their names of, and I just met them.  Here are some pics from today:

Joe working on the mulch pile.

Everyone pitched in to move this mulch pile to back fence.  This was going to be a new garden plot instead.

Lots of people pitching in

Cleaning up the plots

Sue working on her plot

Lots of leaf bags everywhere

Hewitts, a local nursery, donates leaf bags to the CDCG.

Rhubarb plant

Look at this huge rhubarb plant!  This is either Joe’s or Sue’s.

Weeding the flowerbed outside the garden

Everyone’s hard at work! This pic made me laugh because it reminds me of a Sprint commercial with those bars…

Veggie Mobile truck

As we were weeding, a truck playing hip hop music really loudly came thundering through the neighborhood. We looked up to see this bright truck coming through.  This truck is part of the CDCG’s program to get fresh fruits and veggies to the inner city.  Here, many people don’t have cars and don’t have a full grocery store for many miles.  Lots of people rely on the corner store, which has lots of processed foods, but not a lot of fresh produce.  The Veggie Mobile is a refrigerated truck that runs on biodiesel and solar power!  It goes through these neighborhoods and gives out free, fresh produce.  We can grow extra food in our garden this summer and give it to the veggie mobile to pass out, or participate in the Squash Hunger program, which donates the food direct to the communities themselves.  CDCG is great!

Close-up

There were so many people who showed up for the work party, we finished pretty quickly! And not a moment too soon – today is gonna be brutal!