Welcome!

Hello Readers,

Welcome to the newly created blog, Venerate the Plow. As you may have guessed, the purpose of this blog is to record the history of the student-run gardens at Lewis and Clark college. My name is Lucien, and I'm a sophomore biology major. I'll be taking care of the gardens this summer, along with many volunteers. I'll start off by saying this - I am a worm. By this, I don't mean that I'm a slimy, spineless, soil-dwelling creature. Instead, it is my hope that I'll be able to digest the events of the summer into a usable format, much like my wriggling compatriots.

There are two student-run gardens. The first was created only last year, molded from an unused volley-ball pit. This is the smaller of the two gardens, ~350 ft^2 in size. It is referred to as the 'David Rosengarden' (or just Rosengarden) because David Rosengard, the Area Director of Forest, was instrumental in the garden's creation. The other, larger garden (~2500 ft^2) is located on the edge of campus, near the Graduate School of Education and Counseling, or 'South Campus.' Accordingly, this garden is referred to as the 'South Campus Garden.'

The Rosengarden is the better maintained of the two (right now, at least). It is almost entirely filled-up right now. I'll try to post a detailed planting map and pictures of it soon. The South Campus Garden has become overgrow as of late. However, with some help, I've managed to create and plant one 150 ft^2 bed (detailed below), and another should be on its way soon.

My vision for these posts is to start with a section written in prose, and then give a typed version of the notes I take, supplemented with pictures. Currently, I'm a little backlogged with notes/pictures - I'm hoping to start chronologically from when I began working (the weekend of 5/8) and catch up to the present. With that said, the weekend of 5/8 was a busy one. School had just ended, so there were still some garden friends around to help work. Below, you'll see pictures of Adrian Guerro and Nicola, two of the leaders of Garden club, pitting themselves against the forces of entropy and creating the beginnings of the 'Three Sisters' plot. I'll post more on this later.

Gardening Notes

Corn/squash/beans bed at the South Campus Garden

o ~ 150 ft^2

o Double dug on 5/8 – 5/9

§ Added 25 lbs of chicken manure and 1 wheel barrow of compost to top layer

§ Split plot into two halves with path

§ Formed six mounds/half, total of twelve mounds

§ Added ~5 wheel barrows of compost, mostly between rows

o Transplanted ~ 60 corn plants on 5/9

§ ~ 6 inches tall

§ Added 1 handful of Naomi's mineral mix and alfalfa/linseed meal to each mound, stirred throughout

§ Sprinkled kelp

o Seeded Scarlet Runner beans on 5/9

§ 4 beans/mound, 2 bean/location

· Total of 48 seeds

Finished Plot as of 5/9