What’s New in the Garden
We have added additional wood chips to reduce evaporation from the soil, protect the roots of plants from the heat of the sun and keep weeds to a minimum. Our plan for the future is to acquire additional wood chips to share with the community. If you are interested in receiving wood chips in the future, please contact us on Facebook. We are keeping a list of names for future wood chip opportunities.
We appreciate the community members that have dropped off compost, donated plants and seeds and helped with weeding and spreading of woodchips. We couldn’t do this without you.
In a vegetable garden, the key to abundance is assuring pollination of your female flowers by the male flowers. If you are short on pollinators in your garden, such as bees, you have a few options. Short of importing a beehive, as we have done, you can manually pollinate with a toothbrush by moving the pollen from the male flowers to the female flowers, or you can add a water feature and flowers to your garden to attract pollinators. Whatever works best for you. There are no wrong ways to grow a garden, as long as you are trying. Gardening is a continual learning experience.
What’s New at the Garden?
Our Herbal Zen Garden project continues to move toward completion. We'd like to thank Bernie’s Landscaping for creating the site plan and doing an amazing job at designing and completing the concrete work. Thank you to Mountain Rose Herbs for believing in our project and choosing us as a grant recipient. Thank you to Ridgecrest Regional Hospital, Desert Valleys FCU, and City of Ridgecrest for believing in the work we do for the community, as well. We also want to give a BIG thank you to each individual or entity who has made a contribution to our project, whether it was a like, share, donation, or their time. We have received so much love and support from the community and we strive to return that love by bringing health and wellness to our community through teaching health and wellness practices in our new Herbal Zen Garden space. We will be scheduling a grand opening, hopefully in September, and will share the event with the exact date on Facebook and in our September Newsletter. We are raising money to add plants and trees with medicinal properties, so please consider donating at the link below.
https://www.holisticdivineinnovations.org/crowd-funding
Our goal is to continue to create a thriving ecosystem where people, birds, bees, and other insects can coexist in a way that helps save the earth.
Taking advantage of an overcast Saturday, we put together our two pergolas donated for the Herbal Zen Garden space to add shade for events and other activities. Our Ridgecrest Community Garden members were joined by volunteers from the community and made short work of building the pergolas. Next step will be assembling the seating we have been donated and collecting donations to complete the design.
We love when community members visit the garden. As we’ve always said, you are welcome anytime. However, we have a very strict watering regimen and members that follow a schedule for watering. Please do not help us with watering in the garden as plants can be killed through overwatering and we can accumulate elevated water bills that the garden is not budgeted to support. If you want to contribute your time watering, please contact us on Facebook and we will get you on the schedule or assure you of what the schedule is. Just as we appreciate the neighborhood watch apprising us of any misdeeds or vandalism at the garden, we also will be happy to hear from you if you have concerns about inadequate watering that may be putting plants at risk. We are here for you. Zen out, Ridgecrest :-)