Garden Makeover

Starworks Garden is

getting a bit of a makeover these days.

Besides pulling up the plants that are past their prime, and making space for fall planting, I've started some general tidying up. Tony and his dad brought me a truckload of pine chips and shavings that I am using between the beds to suppress weeds. All summer I had cardboard and hay down there, which worked pretty good too, and killed most of the weeds, but had mostly been turned into compost by now. I want to put chips down between all the pathways. (It's all about control really.) What do ya'll think - doesn't it look pretty nice? It remains to be seen what happens when it rains - as we have not had a drop fall from the sky in weeks...
Here's one of the brave lettuces that made it from seed to a plant. About half the plants I started have been devoured... by slugs I suspect. So today I did another sprinkling of DE (Diatomaceous Earth). Last weeks sowing of lettuce in raised beds did not yield any results. I think it's just too hot still for the seeds to germinate. So today I also started a new batch of greens (lettuces, spinach, rukola, a mesclun mix and kale) under the deck. Most likely they will be coming up in 2 days, and since Maarja and I have prepped more space for planting - they will be able to go in the ground faster this time - and be covered with row cover immediately.

Watermelons were eaten

I just got back from Star Elementary. If ya'll remember, STARworks Garden had a mess of kids planting some watermelon seeds, herbs and flowers in the spring. Well, many of our CSA members have enjoyed a sweet treat in form of a watermelon this summer, and now that school is back in, I decided to take the last fruits to the kids who planted them. Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pictures, as there was plenty of excitement and I was busy cutting up the melons.

Kids were happy to eat the fruits of their labor, and promised to come back to plant some more!

It's Mushroom Time.

It wasn't all for nothing!

Aren't they beautiful? I remember thinking, when drilling these 40 logs, that it may all be for nothing since I didn't get to plugging the logs until April and the spore, although stored in the fridge, was sort of old... but I still went for it, and plugged some sweet gum and white oak logs, stacked them in one big pile, and hoped for the best.
Well, last week at some point Maarja and I looked at the logs, and saw 2 small mushrooms poking out. I took that as a sign, that it was time to reconfigure the pile, so I stacked the logs like that:
The three piles in the back are in the most shade, and the very last ones (being the smaller sweet gum logs) are producing some Shiitakes. There are a few small mushrooms on oak and thicker sweet gum logs. We've been watering them twice a day now for the past 3 days or so, and their growth is amazingly fast. The first dibs on mushrooms will go to Eddie and Angela, as Eddie came out with his chainsaw in the spring and helped Adam and I cut the sweet gums off our wooded part of the property here at STARworks. From then on I'll be adding shrooms to our CSA shares for those who will eat them:)

EXCITING!

PS! I'd love to hear from the workshop participants how their logs are doing!

Central Park NC on UNCTV

We're all very busy here, getting geared up for our Annual Meeting. Yes folks, it's almost that time again! Save the date for October 29'th and RSVP about your attendance.

UNCTV has also been busy putting together a story about Central Park NC and STARworks NC,

so check it out!

White House has also put out a video about the kitchen garden of the first family. The video takes a while to upload, so those with better connections are in luck.

French farmers are banking in cows these days! You can find a short article about it HERE.

Something is chomping on my freshly started plants already... there is no relief... gardening / farming is really a man's feeble attempt in submitting chaos to order... I'm tired of bugs. They're everywhere. I want to give up.