What’s growing now: a picture feature

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The first real planting of the season

Half of our greenhouse is laid out in beds for winter/spring production.

So, today was a pretty big day for the greenhouse. We finished rototilling the east half, added fertilizer, patched the plastic (poly patch tape is a school’s best friend), laid out the growing beds, and even got around to the fun stuff: planting garlic.

We all smelled like gasoline from the tiller,

And you thought you had rock problems. These came out of 480 sqare feet of dirt.

but in the end, it was a great morning.

We planted two varieties of garlic, neither of which we know the name of. Our farmer-in-residence, Andrew, says that we’ll be growing it only until it resembles a green onion. This will keep its season short, and should go nicely with rest of our “salad CSA”.

Some of our broccoli plants are growing florets!

Up for next Friday’s work day is a planting of one of our Asian greens. They’re brassicas, so they’ll do especially well in the cold. We’ll also mulch the garlic bulbs, but only if the ground freezes over night. It may sound contradictory, but we want the bulbs to grow slowly.

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Check it out…more publicity!

 

You guys should definitely check out this article about us…it’s pretty spiffy, plus it has a video and photo gallery.

We’re just about to let out of school for Thanksgiving break, so I’m afraid I’m just going to have to throw the link and run. Oh yeah. And add a photo.

Here it is!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, FIRST GREENHOUSE MEETING OF THE YEAR

After countless discussions and almost two years of work, the completion of the greenhouse is at our doorstep. We kicked off the school year with an awesome meeting where we gained two new student members, Andrew Wilson, and Mariama Jallow, officially hired Andrew Ehrmann as our farmer in residence, and finalized the positioning of the greenhouse on the south side of ARTech. These steps mark the beginning of the end because once we order the structure and apply for the building permit it’s a waiting game till we can start hammering stakes into the ground. Its been a long, long process, but it will all be worth it to the group and to the school once a beautiful 48 foot greenhouse neighbors the solar panels on our southern lawn.



Artech students at one of St. Olaf's greenhouses

Progress and a Photo

Progress towards the eventual construction of our greenhouse is continuing, although our blogging had slowed (way) down there for a while. So a bit of an  update is in order.

Since the last post, we have created a final (and rather attractive) brochure, complete with a color background and photos. The one you see above was taken this morning, in a balmy 28 degrees,  on the south side of the school, next to the solar panels.

Also exciting will be a trip to the MOSES Organic Farming conference next Friday and Saturday, in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Arlo, Amelia, Todd, and Todd’s son Andy will be attending. More about that will be coming.