{"id":203,"date":"2021-04-04T21:33:17","date_gmt":"2021-04-04T21:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/?p=203"},"modified":"2021-04-09T23:54:42","modified_gmt":"2021-04-09T23:54:42","slug":"week-2-co-curricular-community-gardens-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/week-2-co-curricular-community-gardens-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Week 2 &#8211; Co-Curricular Community Gardens Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Week 2 theme: Bed Preparation, direct seeding, seedling flats.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1:1 Planning and Preparing (what&#8217;s coming up?)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This will be the first week that we will be meeting in the community garden plot and I am so excited to see all of your faces! At 9:30 on both Tuesday and Thursday, we will gather outside of the SAL building next to the farm and farm office where we will debrief and check for our COVID badges, please fill out the COVID health verification before arriving to campus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For some pertinent readings this week, read the following: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Chapter 5 (pp 49-56) of <em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Better Soils for Better Crops<\/span> (which can be freely downloaded <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sare.org\/resources\/building-soils-for-better-crops-3rd-edition\/\">here<\/a><\/em>). <\/li><li>Seeds Chapter (pp 119-140) of<strong> <\/strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><em>Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades<\/em><\/span><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>There are a few supplies that we could all bring <strong>each week<\/strong> to be prepared for the day: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Field Notebook and pencil (preferably water proof)<\/li><li>Gardening Gloves <\/li><li>Trowel or Hori-Hori (if possible) <\/li><li>Weather appropriate clothing and shoes (please no sandles\/flip-flops.) <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>It might be helpful to check the weather the night before we arrive at the garden space to be up-to-date on the projected weather &#8211; I like to use NOAA for weather updates:<strong> <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/forecast.weather.gov\/MapClick.php?lat=47.0392&amp;lon=-122.8913\">click for weather<\/a>. Another great weather resource is the AgWeatherNet of WSU, you can find that <a href=\"https:\/\/weather.wsu.edu\/\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>~<strong>Tuesday (4\/6)<\/strong>~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Since this Tuesday will be the first day that we spend at the garden, I expect that the majority of our time will be spent with introductions and guidelines, as well as taking a tour of the space and asking\/answering questions. This will be our opportunity to talk about our individual learning goals for the Spring, and perhaps we can come up with a tentative plan to try and meet those goals! I will also give you all some structure of my own vision for the community garden as I will be continuing to manage the plot once the Spring quarter has ended &#8211; that being said, anyone that has the desire to stay involved in the garden throughout the Summer and Fall, is very welcome to do so! If there is any time left to put some work into the space, we will start the season off with some seeding and bed prep! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I will make myself available for any questions that you have, I am here to support our individual projects so please reach out if you think that I can help. See you there!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>~Thursday (4\/8)~<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With introductions and guidelines out of the way, Thursday will be the first day that we can actually start making some serious progress in our plot! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you look in my week 1 post, you can see that I have tilled half of the planting bed, and I left the other half undisturbed. Having half of this space mostly cleared of weeds, we can quickly prep the beds and start putting seeds into the ground. There are many many ways that farmers\/gardens prep their planting beds, and I encourage you to read and learn of as many as you can; I will try and cover the basics that usually lead to success, and point out what I enjoy about my own method. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two common ways to approach starting the seeds that will eventually mature into our crops: transplanting and direct seeding. Transplanting is done when a crop must start off within a greenhouse and wait until they are strong enough to transplanted into the field. Direct seeding is usually reserved for crops that are capable of handling the extremes of our region&#8217;s days and nights, and also for crops that require large amounts of seeds to be sown. For instance, by starting our tomato seeds in a greenhouse, they can be started before the conditions outside would allow for tomato growth, and they can be pampered so that each plant has it&#8217;s best chance of surviving. This is not to say that tomatoes can be started by direct seeding, but transplanting allows for much more control of the plant&#8217;s health, while giving us a jump on the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another way to look at it is that, one tomato plant holds far more value to a grower than one radish plant because of the drastic difference in harvest yields between them &#8211; a single tomato plant can produce many pounds of fruit, but one radish will always be one radish. On the flip-side of this, it would take an enormous amount of greenhouse space to hold enough radish seedlings to have a good yield of radishes. I use this example to show that there are many possible ways to go about growing crops (some better than others) but it is up to you to do the research and then do what works for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is my hope that by the end of our time on Thursday we have united on a crop-plan movement, prepped a few beds, directly seeded into those beds, and started some seedling trays. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/CG-4.6-Spread-em-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/CG-4.6-Spread-em-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/CG-4.6-Spread-em-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/CG-4.6-Spread-em-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/CG-4.6-Spread-em.jpeg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>&#8220;I love gardening *<em>this* much<\/em>!&#8221; photo by Sarah Williams<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1:2 Tending<\/strong> <strong>and Managing (what we do?)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What an incredible week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the first time in over a year I was able to gather with a class, face to face, rather than over a Zoom video call. The weather was great, and it was nice to stand in the sun, on the campus, with my peers to talk about the coming quarter and what work we were looking forward to doing. We spent Tuesday introducing our individual projects and taking in the lay of the land; we got to see the layout of the Community Garden space, as well as what we are going to working with in the Medicinal Herb Garden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As we stood next to our communal plot, I took some time to talk with my peers about how we might structure the crop plan with the land that we have access to. I went over why the beds are laid out the way they are, talking about how by orienting the rows north to south allows for sun light to hit both sides of a row, given our location on the planet. We also talked about the crops that we are excited to grow, and how we are going to start making that happen. It seems that we will meet once a week over Zoom to work through the crop plan and talk through any questions or desires that come up, this will also offer an hour or two that can be logged for credits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With now having visualized the space, we were prepared to show up on Thursday, ready to do some work and get some seeds in the ground! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although I ran out of gas, I was just able to make it to class on Thursday, loaded down with tools and seeding supplies. It was my personal goal to pull the plastic tarp off of a portion of the tilled bed and get to work on preparing a bed. With massive help from Ashley, Ali, and Sarah D, we were able to mark, amend (with Steve&#8217;s class-made compost), and form a bed that could be directly seeded into. One of the particular issues that we will be facing in our planting space is the pervasive Comfrey and Ranunculus (or Buttercup) that has taken over our bed from years of disuse. By broad-forking and double digging the beds we were about to get deep into the soils and loosen up some compaction, all while removing as many Ranunculus and Comfrey roots as we could find. Once we had made an entire pass over the 15&#8242; bed, we had a beautiful, light and friable space that would be able to put seeds into&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8230;and put seeds into it we did! The first crop that we sowed in our communal garden space were peas that had been inoculated with nitrogen-fixing rhizobium. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_121636-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-234\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_121636-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_121636-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_121636-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_121636.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Pea seeds inoculated with nitrogen-fixing rhizobium. <br>Photo taken by Caleb P <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Once the peas had been tucked in, we all switch gears to seeding some seedling trays that we will eventually transplant into the field. To start, we mixed our own seedling mix using aged compost, coir, peat, perlite, and some gypsum. Once the mix had been mixed, we filled our trays and seeded 3 varieties of tomatoes (Afghan, Sungold, and Damsel), larkspur flowers, mixed straw-flowers, and some curly endive. I am so excited for these crops! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To close out the week, I came back on Friday morning to prep one more bed that would hold the inoculated Scarlet Runner Beans, and I also added a row of spinach and turnips on opposing sides of the peas so that the peas would be flanked by two lower growing crops. Since I soaked the peas until they germinated (among other reasons), the peas should have a good head start and have no issue getting up and above the spinach and turnips.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210409_133050-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-233\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210409_133050-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210409_133050-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210409_133050-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210409_133050.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Runner Beans, Turnips, Peas, and Spinach &#8211; respectively. <br>Photo by Caleb P<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1:3 Shishito Pepper Field Trial<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With the seeds put in their pots, I am going to have some time before they germinate, especially with the nights reaching below freezing on a regular basis still. Yet, there was plenty of planning to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The space that the peppers are to be trialed in is a shared space with other field trials run by other individuals and a majority of my work for this project this week went into corresponding with everyone involved to try and agree on a field layout that worked for everyone&#8217;s needs. I think that we were able to agree on a layout and so I began planning the pepper trial&#8217;s own layout. Since the pepper trial bed is quite close to some very tall trees, I wanted to see whether the the shade would become an issue later on in the season, when the sun begins to lower in the sky. To determine this, I rented out a clinometer from the school so that I can look at the angle of the tree line in reference to the angle of the sun&#8217;s light and the planting bed to see when the trees will begin shading out the southern most part of the trials. The angles of the sun for our particular region, at all parts of the year can, be looked up online, and I will use this info to know at what date the sun will dip below the tree line at a given spot in my field. I will tackle this during week 3. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Aside from those things, there was only the tending\/watering of the seeds and some minor greenhouse repairs. I am looking forward to seeing the peppers begin to sprout and will be sure to get it up on this blog as soon as it happens! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_174319-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-235\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_174319-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_174319-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_174319-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/729\/2021\/04\/20210408_174319.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Cozy and warm(ish). <br>Photo by Caleb P<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>1:4 Mentorship Reflection<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This was the first week of meeting in person and I knew there were going to be some kinks to work out in the system. I went into both Tuesday and Thursday hoping to try and do less talking and to do more listening. It is hard for me to know exactly how deep to go into certain topics that I am covering. I want to try and pass on the reasons behind why we are doing some of the things that we are doing but I don&#8217;t want to overload or take up too much time with information that my peers don&#8217;t necessarily want\/need to know. On top of that, the time that I take to explain some of these things ends up taking time away from the work that needs to be done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have decided to try and do some very brief overviews of the main reasons  why we do certain tasks in certain ways, and leave it up to the others to ask more specific questions when they find something interesting. When we do some workshops on topics such as composting or making liquid fertilizer, these can be times to go into detail on the intricacies of how these systems work. Hopefully this will allow for a nice balance between some good old fashioned hard work, and some interesting learning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Already, after just two days of working together, I know that we are all going to have a blast and grow some great food. Once the routine falls into place, we will be unstoppable, and we will all be able to count on one another for help and support. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Week 2 theme: Bed Preparation, direct seeding, seedling flats. 1:1 Planning and Preparing (what&#8217;s coming up?) This will be the first week that we will be meeting in the community garden plot and I am so excited to see all of your faces! At 9:30 on both Tuesday and Thursday, we will gather outside of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/week-2-co-curricular-community-gardens-project\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Week 2 &#8211; Co-Curricular Community Gardens Project<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":417,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/417"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203\/revisions\/240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.evergreen.edu\/tmtaa-portfolio-sp21-caleb-p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}