Update from Alex

Hello everyone,

I heard back from the Hort. Society about our entry. It's only open to homeowners so we don't qualify to compete. Drat! It said that applied to the Food Garden Category but it didn't mention it for the other categories so I thought we could enter.

Earlier today I was in the garden and the Y-Map supervisor dropped by with 3 of the 4 volunteers who will be coming on a regular basis. She wanted to show them where to meet (by the dumpster). She mentioned Y-Map also does activities throughout the summer for all the kids in that program and I asked them to come next Thursday from 3-5pm to help tidy up the garden for the competition. I would still like them to come. The Calgary Attendance crew starts around 9:30am and should be done by 3pm. I'll know next week how many kids can come.

I was going to use Thursday to spruce up the garden for the judging and I would like to proceed along those lines. Some items to get done (by either group):

Earth Moving
- Move soil from the dirt pile to the area around plot. no. 1 - the one with all the garlic growing in it - for test sowing of the White Dutch Clover seeds.
- Fill up plot 6 (Y-Map plot) with soil from dirt pile and layer with compost.
- Finish levelling that pile of soil (use it to level out the ground where the new plots will go
- Move sod pile to Northeast corner and water well
- Flatten that bump where the youth group tree used to be and reseed with grass.

Edging
- Finish putting in the edging along the raspberry bed. We will need to get another twelve (2"x4"x8feet) boads.
- Edge around all non-fruit trees and remove all the weeds within the circle. Water deeply.
- Edge along bed behind dumpster.

Tidying Up
- Pick up garbage along fence and in the garden
- Weed every single community bed including the grapes, currants, horse radish in front of the shed, raspberries, the orchard spaces and around the new plots
- Attendance to mow and weed whack the entire garden
- Remove the dead trees
- turn the compost and put finished compost in back composter

Planting & Transplanting
- Transplant those two lilac bushes that are between the new plots
- Transplant raspberries that are outside the raspberry bed into the raspberry bed
- Sow grass seeds (area of flattened bump & area previously occupied by dirt pile). We need to get some grass seeds.