Summer Update 2

A lot has been happening in the Sprout garden! For one, we have bees on campus! They were moved to the north end of the garden last week. I've spotted many buzzing all around and in the garden. Tomorrow, I am going to be getting a closer look at them with Stuart Woronecki, who moved the bees to campus.

Many more vegetables have been planted in the garden. This includes more beets, carrots, butternut squash, kale, onions, basil, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and sunflowers. It has been raining almost every other day, and the plants are growing quickly. We've been getting daily harvests of absolutely delicious strawberries.

I also have dug and planted an herb garden around the rocks in the center of the garden. There are many types of herbs including sage, rosemary, lemon balm, lemon grass, chamomile, just to name a few. However, it was a little late to direct seed herbs, but hopefully we will still get at least some mature herbs later in the season.


Pests, especially cucumber beetles, are still causing a lot of damage to zucchini and cucumber plants. Also, I saw today that the tops of a few plants, especially the peas and beans, had been chomped off. I discovered a few places where some animal has chewed its way through the fence. The workers who are renovating 360 and Earth House told me they have seen a wood chuck in the garden. For now, I covered holes with big rocks, although I think we are going to need a more permanent solution than that.

Besides just working in the garden, I will also be meeting with Physical Plant later this week to discuss the possibility of modifying the gutters on 360 and Earth House in order to setup a rainwater collection system. Given they are already doing construction on these buildings now, it seems like a perfect time to set this up. I also hope to focus more on making contacts off of the Conn campus and in New London later in the week. We may even have enough mature produce to sell at Fiddleheads this coming Saturday, as the turnips, radishes, and bok choy are looking almost ready for harvest.

Zucchini, bok choy, and turnip plants