Summer Update from the Cone Garden

B. Raymond helps out with some hard core weeding at the Cone Garden. Thanks buddy!

The kids and teachers are playing hard and (hopefully) relaxing before the new school year but the Cove Creek Garden has been open for business through the Summer. Christine Fasanello, our ASU garden intern has been stopping by regularly to take care of things and provide updates. We have also had a group of dedicated parents and teachers who have helped to water the plants through out the Summer (thank you Sabena Maiden, Carla Parker, Grace Plummer, Trina Palmer, Davidson Family, Tricia Pfister, Emily Greer, Traci Hartley and Rebecca Tobiassen!), and other families like the Raymonds popped in to get their hands dirty and do some weeding. Others like Sara Isaacs and Anita Mains have helped to "put out some fires" like issues with water hoses. 

We want to encourage as many members of the community as possible to participate in our garden project and will continue to look for ways to get more involvement. It's an amazing garden with lots of potential and the more hands on deck we have the more we'll be able to get out of it all year round.

Our main issues this Summer have been crazy weeds because of all the rain and some pests like Japanese beetles, but crops like tomatoes, beans and pumpkins are all flourishing thanks to our garden helpers. Check out some photo updates of what's been growing. Photo credits: Sabena Maiden.

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Issues that have come up for future discussion:

• How to prevent weeds from taking over the beds during the Summer (e.g. using weed cover such as straw).
• Dealing with pests in an environmentally-friendly way (what pests do we anticipate? should we have solutions made up and ready to treat?)
• Installing an automatic, solar-powered irrigation system to make watering more efficient, sustainable and preventing issues such as people accidentally forgetting to turn off a hose. 
• Creating a helper rotation for each bed, rather than for the whole garden. This summer we had one person taking care of watering each week, but with the weeding, the task becomes too overwhelming. Might be better if each bed is adopted by a grade for example (so K parents take turns taking care of the K beds, etc)
• Educating community helpers about weeding- what's a weed and what's a veggie!
• How to keep better track of bed updates such as who collects what crops and how much they collect, or when pests are detected in a specific bed, etc. A physical garden log at the garden might be better than the Google Drive doc for this, so helpers can jot notes down.