Meeting the Mayor, Garden Art, and the Bug Brigade

A lot has happened since our last blog update in May.

To start, a group of us got to tell our community about the garden at a July 4th party at the park held by the Mayor’s office. Mayor Bowser herself stopped by to say hello, and got a garden tour.

Steve and Marc manning the table (offering free garden blossoms) and Steve giving Mayor Bowser a tour:

 

Barry, Steve, Kelly and Mayor Bowser with young friend and her own bouquet:

We were happy that we had the chance to show off the garden at a particularly beautiful time of year, when the plots are full of lush, growing plants, and just following the completion of our shed mural during the June work day. Check out the great work of One Common Unity in the pics below:

And last but not least, we had a great July workday on the 18th, despite some like sprinklings of rain. A group of 25 or so brave souls did some serious weed and bug butt-kicking.

First, we must sing the praises of Rennie, Isaac, Mohammad and Bill, who spent a good hour plus in the abandoned lot behind the garden clearing dead plants, tree saplings, vines, and trash. A herculean effort! Rennie also gets extra kudos for taking down several large tree branches that were overhanging our forest garden – no easy feat. Bill helped with this too.

Also – huge thanks to the many other gardeners who did diligent weeding throughout the garden.

Finally – our Bug Brigade! Led by April Thompson – another brave group of gardeners went through the garden and hand-picked harlequin bugs off of many, many plots. They then treated the infested plots with organic kaolin clay. Here’s hoping these efforts help control the pest problem we are experiencing.

We’ll leave you with this parting shot – our beautiful garden with the blue shed crowning the jungle:

 

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