February Update

Time for another garden update! The rest of nature may be sleeping, but the garden is not! Our swiss chard, celery, broccoli, lettuce and Brussels sprouts thrived throughout the winter and have been giving up some of their last produce just in time for a spring planting. Most important, however, is the slow winter growth of our eighteen fruit trees and twenty-four blueberry bushes that we finished planting right before spring break. Although it'll take some time to determine who survived and who didn't, many of the plants are sending out buds and fresh branches in preparation for spring. We're looking forward to incorporating these eager young trees and bushes as permanent members in the garden.

These plants will have some company! If you come by the garden, you will notice rows and rows of new raised beds in between the trees. These were made at the very end of spring break by our construction team and are the focus of an exciting new program. In exchange for an hour of work each month, volunteers will be able to grow their own food in individual raised beds. We hope that this effort will provide members of the Duke community with an opportunity to interact and experiment with nature. This program is open to both experienced and inexperienced gardeners. We welcome participation in the main garden as well. We'll soon be holding free educational workshops on the basics of gardening, so feel free to come on by and learn how to plant, tend and ultimately grow your own food!


This planting season will continue with more cold-weather crops going in the ground shortly. Work continues on the individual raised beds. We're laying newspaper in and around the beds to reuse some old materials for new purposes. We fill the beds with topsoil and compost, then mulch around them to beautify the area. As this project continues, a major construction project is being realized in the garden. An update about it will come soon!

Come out for some nature time and relaxing work in the sun! Our works days this semester are on Sundays from 2-4pm and Thursdays from 1:30-3:30pm. We hope to see you there!

The Garden Crew

Orchard Plans

Hi everyone!

We've got a major change coming to the garden soon, so I thought that this would be a good time for an update. The garden is transitioning from summer to winter well, and as the summer plants die off and produce less and less, the winter crops that have been plagued by bugs and excessive heat all year are healthier and leafier than ever. It's hard to watch the mainstays go- particularly the okra and tomatoes- but it's also good to see the plants for the next season develop. We've prepared for winter, though, and mulched the beds and set up stakes so that we can extend the life of the annuals by protecting them from minor frosts with sheets of fabric and plastic.We've been in touch with groups and individuals on campus for selling our produce, and soon we'll have a final harvest of summer plants that we'll sell to those groups and on the plaza.

The anticipated selection of crops for the winter is: Kale, Collard Greens, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Leeks, and Swiss Chard.

The major plans for the cold season are already at our front door. We've ordered 44 fruit trees and berry bushes that are coming in time for a volunteer workday on Sunday. We'll try to get them all in the ground, but may also have to dig a trench to place them in if we can't finish by the end of the work day. Essentially, we can dig a trench deep enough for the plants, place them at an angle within it, cover them with soil and water them regularly, and they should be ok until we are ready to plant them.

The trees and bushes we are planting are:

4 Improved Kieffer Pear Tree 4-5' 2 Fuji Apple Tree 3-4' 2 Braeburn Apple Tree 3-4' 2Tanenashi Persimmon Tree 1-2' 4 Italian Everbearing Fig Tree 2-2.5'

1 Eastern Seedling PawPaw Tree 4-5' 1 Collins Select PawPaw Tree 4-5' 8 Tifblue Blueberry Plant 1-2' 8 Briteblue Blueberry Plant 1-2' 4 Brightwell Blueberry Plant 2-3' 4 Austin Blueberry Plant 2-3' 2 Golden African Banana Plant Mother Bulb 2 American Elderberry 4-5' We are, needless to say, very excited about these new additions! Their addition will be the first of a long series of winter projects including landscaping, working on the terrace, managing seedlings, and building a perennials bed.