It has been a long strange summer here in Big Lake and the garden at Houston High shows it as well as the gardens at Wicked Raven too. This spring was worse than last year for being cold. The High School Culinary Arts class planted a whole bunch of plants in April (Late April so not early enough but...), school gets out on May 19th of this year so the kids had to plant their items on that day or they would not have got to plant them for the most part. But Alaska is not to be toyed with on the Mother Nature side of life! It froze hard, a killing frost on May 22nd and killed off most of the kids plants! We were left with some savory, oregano and a tiny sage plant in one raised bed. We had two cabbage and a lovely squash survive in another, and the potatoes are doing beautifully. We lost both of the apple trees (we will probably replace those next year) and the rhubarb is struggling but will live.
We have had a lot of cool and overcast days but not a lot of watering rain. Everything has to be watered and watered even though the sun hasn't necessarily been shining. We did have some days of 80-90 degree weather though and the wind has been drying as well.
We have a lot of hose at the High School garden. 400 feet to be exact!
You can read about it here.That is how long it has to be for it to reach from the nearest hose bib on the school wall to the garden. The hose is kept locked in a shed (I call them the tiny sheds), and if I forget my keys I have to haul water by hand in containers!
Above are three of the containers I haul water in when I can't get to or can't yard out the 400' of hose!
I use the yard cart to haul the containers the 400' from the hose bib, it works great and you can fill it with water as well, double dipping so to speak!
The strawberry patch is doing well, but they run all over the place and have to be herded back into the row at least once a summer. The little rock with the butterfly is a special gift from a school staff member. When the garden was vandalized a couple years ago, she made that and put it there "secret surprise" style. It always makes me smile when I see it - and maybe it tricks the birds into thinking all the berries are rocks and not for them to eat! We can hope!
We have berries getting ripe!
Here is some of the purple kale, tomatoes, and some other plants donated by Snowfire Gardens after our freeze out! Thank you to Snowfire Gardens!
Here is that lovely squash plant that survived the freeze! I think its a Black Beauty or a Dostal. Either way isn't it beautiful!
Can you see the tiny tomato on the plant? It's right next to the upright stick!
Our beds along the fence now have tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower and some broccoli! You can see how dry it looks. This was prior to a good watering on one of the really sunny days.
We have raspberries galore! Hoping for a good crop so the kids can make some Jam or something wonderful with Mrs. Fortune this fall!
The raspberries also try to run out of the rows!
If you are in the garden there are always things you can do even if no one else is there. There are always weeds to pull (anything purple that isn't a chive has to go!), as well as chickweed, dandelion, mustard, and fireweed. You can also dig the strawberries and the raspberries from in between the rows and plant them in the Huglekultures, or dig them off of the dirt hill (raspberries) and put in the rows. If it seems dry, please water - there are watering cans and some water barrels in the far corner of the fence. Just dip and water - easy!
I can't wait for the kids to see the plants that lived and be able to harvest and use the goodies from the garden! If you are there - enjoy the space!