Beautiful Spring in Santa Clara!!

 One hour work-parties for the win!!  We had some new helpers in the garden today and one made the comment that there wasn't that much to do.  Well, here's what got done:

PVC repairs with the help of Reggie (6 yo) the "repair guy" who told me where the leak was in which bed, cut the pvc for me and helped glue the new pieces together!  Then Tom, the perfectionist (said with great love because I will never qualify as one!) helped with the bed that needed some major cutting and replacing.  We BOTH got blue glue on our fingers even though we were really trying not to!

We planted pre-sprouted seeds in the cucumber bed, replanted watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew beds, picked a lot of sugar snap peas as well as some regular peas, picked (and ate!) strawberries, weeded the walkways, planted some pepper seed, and thinned the beet bed...until the water came on and gave everyone a little shower!!  

Larry Coleman (385.479.0173) is new to our garden, and we are so glad he has joined us!!  He has started a new business of selling worm castings from his "worm farm."  We used a bunch today with everything we planted and look forward to even better growing to come!!

It's amazing what we get done in one hour, working together...and having FUN while we do it!

Time to Catch-up!

 Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme!!  The herbs continue to flourish in the garden!

We learned something important during March:  do NOT transplant beets in the middle of the day when temperatures have soared to 95 degrees!!  (Not our normal spring weather!)  They all but died!!  If we would have transplanted in the evening, they would have been MUCH happier!!  As it is, they have started to come back pretty well, so we will have beets, but not as early as originally planned!

      

TRAUMATIZED BEETS...

     

We had great helpers plant tomato seeds, cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, cantaloupe and watermelon!!  

We are trying something new at the garden:  I pre-soaked 4 packets of tomato seed, then put each packet of seeds onto a moistened paper towel, folded it up, and placed in a plastic bag for a few days.  The seeds have sprouted, and we planted a "square" of seeds (including the paper towel) in "bowls" at the garden.

Let the growing begin!!  

Homeschoolers and Gardening...the Best!!

 Thursday - February 5, 2026 saw an influx of 25 youngsters from a home-school group at the garden.  Some of the kids were late and didn't make it into the photo op at the beginning of our garden experience.

Everyone helped give the onions a "haircut" so more energy could be put into growing the bulb of the onions.  There were a lot of onions to trim!

They got to sample kale and broccoli, and discovered that fresh broccoli is really good to eat, including the stems!!  They thought the really long leaf of kale sticking out of my mouth looked like a green tongue!

And, of course, it takes lot ot work to get the beds ready to plant, so they helped with digging the walkways and throwing the dirt into the beds...

While the kids were planting the peanut bed (oops, no pictures!) the moms helped rake the beet bed that the kids just planted.

The Winter Thaw is Here! HOORAY!!!

 Last year (2025) we didn't get our normal winter thaw and we really missed it!  It's back in 2026 and may even last three weeks!!

We met at the garden today and planted 250 onion sets that we grew, cleaned out the bulk of dead flowers in the flower bed, planted a small patch of Little Marvel Peas, cleared out some of the walkways, disconnected most of the pipes and moved them so rototilling can begin.  We got a lot of leaves out from the shed area, and put two very full trashcans out for pickup on Monday.  It was a great work party!!  AND we're especially grateful to the "bucket fairy" who procured a bunch of buckets for the garden!!  We were down to about 2 or 3 buckets!!

More to come in the coming week!!

We still have some wedding to do!!  

PEANUT HARVEST and MORE!!

 Saturday, October 18th was the perfect time for people to come and harvest the peanuts...and other veggies!!  This is SUCH a fun thing for kids to do, and we had a great turnout!  

We dug up all of the peanuts and stripped them off the plants...let everyone pick some corn, and we picked a few pumpkins, cucumbers, butternut squash, and some BIG sweet potatoes.  And we did it all in ONE HOUR!!!  Who says gardening isn't fun???  It's a blast!!

We are starting to remove some of the tomato plants and

harvesting green tomatoes before it freezes in a few more weeks.

Believe it or not, this is just from a couple of our sweet

potato mounds...

The adults dug up the peanut plants, and the kids and

adults did the rest...