Check out the veggie seedling progress! They’ve grown so much in one week! Tina showed off her spinach; Karen checked out her nasturtium. Susan noticed her cilantro was just starting to peek out of the dirt. Everyone was super psyched to see what was growing!

But April 10 wasn’t really about the seedlings; it was garden clean-up day. We were blessed with clear blue skies and that awesome warm spring sunshine that warms you up like magic.

We all trekked out to the garden with our gloves, shovels, and bright-orange buckets.

It was pretty cool to all be out there again – to look at the dried and dusty remnants of last year’s peas and tomatoes, our kale and cucumbers.

And then we ripped that stuff out! Making room for the new! Today, we had a great blend of BCARC and Q-side folks, and everybody found their role. Ken Szabo pulled out the old tomato stakes; Meagan and Tina and Silka ripped out the old sweet peas; Mitch grabbed a shovel and started turning over the soil, breathing new life into it.

Caity explained that our twelve beds were all a little overfull, and so we removed about two inches of soil from each one. Sounds like a little, but that’s a lot of soil. Good thing we had a great team! Some people shoveled, others carried buckets to the soil pile, some raked the gardens smooth. Chrissy gave people high-fives on her way to the soil pile. Caity kept us all in line, with gentle instruction and encouragement.

And then we all took off our gloves, went inside, washed our hands, and went back to making Blue Q stuff. All having soaked up a nice dose of Vitamin D.