April, the one month countdown

April is a juggling act in the garden. We are dealing with those lovely April showers that, if you didn’t get your garden prepared early, it is a challenge to get the timing just right in the windows of dry days to till or berm beds or plant. However, last week we had a bit of a tilling blitz in a 3-day window with no rain. Workers and students at Dessie Scott School tilled their little hearts out on a gloriously sunny day, and several home gardens were tilled by me and a friendly volunteer, Roger.

 John Craft leads the way for the Dessie Scott students. They were thrilled to be part of tilling the garden from which they will eat throughout the summer and school year. The pride in their faces to be out in the garden was awesome– I can’t wait to see their joy when they are picking the fruits of their labor!

After Roger tilled his own garden, he tilled his Grow Appalachia neighbor’s.

Notice the ear protection… running the tiller is loud!

Our proud Cub Cadet tiller.

Our most recent meeting was Garden Maintenance taught by Grow Appalachia’s lovely Program assistant, Kayla Preston. We had fun doing Hortonova and Florida weave trellising demonstrations as the sun was setting. Everyone who attended (not quite everyone in the program is pictured here) was extremely pleased to receive a new tool or two as well as onions, taters, cabbage, and many other seeds from a generous donation from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and our local Bill Hatton’s Wolfe County Farm Supply. Bill also threw in a pair of gloves for everyone!

Wolfe had another visitor this week from Grow Appalachia HQ– Alix Burke, Foodlorist Extraordinaire. We sat with 5 of our growers who gave Alix the dirt on their gardening experience. I certainly look forward to what will come of Alix’s wonderful research into the stories of Grow Appalachia folks.

We met some lovely farm animals and pets who were basking in the sunshine. And look at those raised beds!

Overall in Wolfe we are getting all the gardens tilled and/or prepared, last minute garden plans, seed orders, tool and trellis purchases and pickup, workshops and more! It is an exciting time and everyone is itching to get in the dirt and get food on the tables!