Surprise!

Yesterday morning, I got a surprise while working with a few of my fellow master gardeners. The surprise was the information that The Children's Garden project received a $1000 grant for plants and seeds. There was even a photo-op in the afternoon when the President of our organization received the check. I hid in the background because I was dirty, hot and sweaty from working all morning and half the afternoon.

As far as recent work on the garden, I got lucky and a fellow MG tilled most of the paths so we could start removing 3-4" of soil from the paths and relocating it to assorted beds to raise some of the beds in the plan. Once the paths are cleared. then we will add mulch to the paths and the real fun can begin of adding compost, plants and lawn. I can't wait to see some other color than dark brown with polka dot weeds!

Now, if I could just get more than nine people signed up to help with and that can work when I can...I think I need to go on a sales campaign and get the group as excited about this as I am. I'm going to think about this a lot over the next few days. Perhaps, I should break the project down and see if I can get people assigned to more specific sections after the plan is clear from the soil excavation and path mulching. For example...someone to do an Alphabet garden gets this section, someone can do the Herbs here, someone can do the Butterfly garden here, another could do the Senses garden there and so on.

It might also stop this ridiculous "Cheryl's garden" thing. Ah, NOT. I have my own at home, thank you. I have wanted other MG's to come forward with their ideas and to incorporate it into the garden all along and actually I have informally assigned a few sections already. I wanted to see other people get creative and think about how they play with their kids and what they would like to see and do in the garden. So maybe if I could get a chance to really sell it at the next meeting rather than the backhanded version of "what's going on?" I might be able to get them more involved. That's been my hope all along, and I'm still hoping.