20 people arrived Saturday morning 3/7, at 10 am to help kick off the Seagrove Community Gardening season. We welcomed returning members; Tom and Slate Gray, Tim, Susan and Jeffery Greene, Bob and Debbie Dowling, Venetia Smith, Bonnie Burns and granddaughters Lexi & Emma, Donna Brown, new member Alexa Modderno, and appreciated the support from nearby Stargarden’s Anne & Adam, Andreas and Lyza, also Gail and Brenda from Wilmington and Jeff, Slate’s cap worker. We enjoyed coffee and conversation in the fellowship hall before gathering tools and heading over to the garden.The objective of the day was to clean up the fall debris, pile up all the garden stakes, tomato cages and trellises. We moved piles and piles of withered tomato vines and okra tree stems to the compost. It had been too wet the previous week due to an all day rain followed by 4 inches of snow to get a load of the lovely composted cow manure/top soil mix from our supplier Barry Brown. Fortunately, we still had half a load left from last year to be spread.
We did weeding in the beds, thinned spinach for harvest and layered shredded paper and compost mix on top of beds. We also built one untreated lumber, 4’ by 8’ by 16” H raised bed and filled it with a mix of shredded paper, leaves and composted soil. We plan to put in several more of the raised beds to make it easier on backs and knees.
After several hours we headed back to the fellowship hall to enjoy a lunch of baked ziti, Mexican vegetable stew, fresh bread and an Asian inspired spinach salad with spinach from the garden that was planted last October. Chocolate cupcakes, and other sweets topped off the meal.
All in all it was a great beginning to what promises to be another productive year. We are grateful for all we learned last year and thankful to be so much further along than we were this time last year, with the majority of our rows now ready to be planted. Pastor Bob has already filled row 10 and part of row 11 with spring plants-broccoli, cauliflower, English peas and sugar snap peas. Bonnie plans to fill row 4 with turnips, greens, lettuce, and edamame. Beth will be filling row 6 with cut flowers and herbs. Barbara will be planting tomatoes, cucumber, squash and peppers when it warms up a bit. Donna will be planting roses in the middle of row 3. We will continue to harvest our spinach until it gets too warm and begins to bolt. Hopefully, by then the Amish paste tomatoes and California Wonder bell pepper that Susan started this week will be ready to go into the ground.
