This morning I woke up at 9am to join the AFAC work party at the Central Library. My mom arrived at 930 and we were at the Library by 945am. We pulled up in the back next to the tennis courts and saw a group of about 10 people working on the BEM or ground beds. I tried to remember the woman's name that I had spoken to but couldn't so I approached tentatively A lady that looked like she was running things so we edged towards her and she happened to be Lisa, the woman, and she knew who I was immediately saying "Hey, Adriana? And Adriana's Mom?" I introduced my mom to Lisa and Puwen (the woman that actually runs things.) After the intro's they put us to work weeding the BEM.
It was miserable at first because we weren't really sure how to weed, it was much colder than it was supposed to be to begin with, and when the wind blew it was bitter but once we got working we warmed up and it actually turned into a beautiful day for gardening by 11am. I got into weeding and was doing it right but very slowly. My mom dove into it with a rake and started hacking at big patches of weeds. She would get the heads but not the roots. Her area was a mess but once Puwen explained that the roots needed to come out with the weeds, she was on a roll she weeded that BEM down to the last minor root pulling some winter overs out with the weeds. Like I said we'd both never weeded. To be honest, she was working much faster and harder than I was... We chatted as we weeded and about an hour later the weeding in the BEM was done. We turned over the soil and things were really looking good compared to how they looked when we arrived. Lisa and Puwen were so grateful for our help. They kept saying that things could get done so much better and more quickly with this size group. So, the group moved on to the built in raised bed, containers, and boxes. The built in bed was a little more difficult then the BEM because there were a lot of plants new and old. Lettuce and carrots had been planted a few weeks ago. Garlic had returned from last year and the Marjoram. My mom and I both couldn't decipher the marjoram from the weeds. So we sort of just stood there for a minute then started hacking in and ended up hacking into the Marjoram. Luckily, it had spread wildly over the winter and few spring weeks and they wanted it pulled back. So no big loss. We cleaned up the raised beds, trimming the dry chives, rotted cabbage, and sage. It was nice to see how these plants wintered over.
At the same time as we were cleaning things up other members of the group were planting potatoes and replanting items that had gotten pulled during the cleaning like garlic and sweet potatoes from the year before. My mom and I moved on to the containers and boxes to clean out all the fallen leaves and sweep up. Make them really look attractive. The one thing that was mentioned about the Central Library gardens, over the other AFAC plots, was the fact that they used the Central Library as a training, educational, and attraction tool. So it really had to be planted, maintained, and cleaned in an aesthetically pleasing way. In the containers and boxes spearmint, dormant strawberries, cabbage, and mint grew. We cleaned them out and swept. Everything looked gorgeous and it was really nice and kinda of cool to see how the mother plant of the strawberries had filled an entire yellow recycling container. How the cabbage had "gone to seed." I was recently speaking to Mike's mom about where the seeds in certain veggies are... helping out with AFAC taught me a few things but the one I was most interested in was "going to seed." Apparently when a vegetable is left to grow past its harvest point it flowers and produces seeds. Once it has "gone to seed" it is no longer as tasty as during prime harvest but if the flowering portion is snipped and the plant allowed to continue to grow it will grow new leaves/foliage and be a tasty harvest again, as long as that is done in a new season. We left around 12pm because my Mom had to take her car into the body shop so we didn't get to plant anything but not much was planted today. What time was allotted was spent, mostly, on clean up and replanting. The next work party (I already got the email) we'll be planting peas, squash, cucumber, and cutting down bamboo to build trellises.
I knew I'd be learning something as well as helping. It was a great morning. I met a lot of new and nice people. I had a lot of fun and I learned a lot, a lot about maintaining a garden. My mom, although not a gardener because she doesn't have the land but a major fan of gardening and would be gardener, had a good time outside and liked doing something to help. She's always saying that if she didn't work she'd spend her time with Charities and even though she does work she's always looking for a Charity to spend a flexible amount of time on. I think she'll be back with me because she is a fan and this is a way to fulfill to small dreams of charity work and becoming a food gardener. I will definitely be back even though we were the less experienced of the group we were so welcomed and appreciated. At first I thought we were the lemons but that wasn't how we were seen at all and in the end we weren't, of course, because we, my Mom especially, did GREAT work!
