Welcome to Summer 2011!

Well hello, fellow gardeners! Summer is finally here, and you know what that means! Right! The Mount Holyoke Student Garden is back! This summer Ingrid and Paula are in the garden managers and they are anxious to get the garden going.

Paula is a rising junior majoring in Environmental Studies.

Ingrid is a rising junior majoring in English.

So far we have seedlings in the greenhousethat we are waiting to transplant. We just need to put in the compost and the fertilizerand then we can start. We have begun volunteering at the local Farmer’s Market and working on our independent projects. We have had a great time so far and are excited at this opportunity we have to carry on the legacy of the Mount Holyoke Student Garden.

In the garden we plan to have in the experimental plots:

Tomato, Eggplant, Peas, Kale, Squash and Carrots.

In the free space we have things like herbs, snapdragons, kohlrabi, beets, basil, watermelon, gourds and more.

We have already made some memories so early in the summer:

Firstly, we had a good time at the Farmer’s Market but during the second time we had a major storm system come through and we got drenched helping vendors reload their things in cars. But it was definitely fun to help even in the rain, and the Farmer’s Market is a fun place to be with live music and local farmers and artisans.

Secondly, we had our first critter in the garden. ‘A deer?’ you guess. ‘A rabbit?’ No, a snapping turtle!

Somehow she got through our fence and made a nest in the middle of our dill in our free space of the garden. We think she was trying to lay eggs but decided on a different spot. The damage was not too bad, but it was certainly unexpected.

We will keep you updated later in the week,

Enjoy the summer weather!

Paula and Ingrid