By Jasmine Shi
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We noticed a big pile of leaves in the parking lot, so we used a tarp to carry them to the leaf storage bin. These leaves will be useful as mulch for the vegetable beds or for composting.
Leaf storage bin
There were a ton of tiny weeds growing alongside the leek seedlings. This bed was weeded today to ensure the weeds are not competing with and taking nutrients from the leeks.
Cleaning up the weed bed
We pulled up many more root vegetables today! They are doing so well right now.
Harvest of daikon radish, carrots and beets.
Alex told us about a podcast he recently listened to on insect ecology. Did you know that 99 percent of insects are beneficial to plants in some way? However, there’s been a drastic decrease in the insect and bird population over the last 50 years.
It’s fascinating when we learn something that shifts our perspective! You can check out the podcast here.
As gardeners, we often try to keep insects away from our plants by using pesticides and the like because we follow the reasoning that insects eat and damage our plants, which we don’t want.
But from an ecological perspective, for example, when we allow caterpillars to live on the plants in our yards and gardens and plant appropriate host plants for them, bug populations grow, which then supports the chickadee population that eats the caterpillars. Thus we are actually contributing to the wellbeing of the ecosystem when we allow insects to thrive in our gardens!
This new point of view follows one of the primary goals of Riley Park Garden, which is to grow plants in a way that promotes biodiversity and provides a home for insect populations.
Alex showing us vegetable leaves that have been munched on by insects and have holes in them
