Day 4: April 62th - Bee’s Wax and Lemon Balm

It is officially the end of our first week at the orchard garden, and today we continued with our gardening and learning. We started the day by learning to make Bee’s Wax reusable food wraps. This is a breathable, compostable, natural and reusable alternative to cling wrap or even plastic storage bags. Shortly after learning how to make these we had 8 guests and were able to share our new knowledge with them by helping them create their own wraps. Everyone left with a great new product to try at home.

Ironing wax onto cotton

The finished Bees Wax Wrap

Next we checked back in on the garden. It is looking better and better every day. For todays work we decided to focuse on one area to in order to see a bigger difference by the end of the day. We decided to freshen up the area towards the road so that is would look more beautiful for everyone that walks by. We removed old plants, weeded and choice to make a new pathway. In order to create this pathway we needed to move a lot of lemon balm. It smelt so great while we did this. Soon where we wanted our path to go was ready. We placed a board for one walkway and used mulch to create a second. It is looking great and all cleaned up and ready for growing season. Of course we also watered all our beautiful plants as well!

  

Working hard to move lemon balm and creat a new path

The garden is growing around us, giving us new skills, ideas and inspiration. Today we learned a new project to bring into schools and while chatting we were able to connect the idea of this food wrapping to multiple subjects. This activity connected the garden to the kitchen in a new way for me. The wax was from bees that pollinated a garden, the food wraps come back to my kitchen saving food from gardens and when they wearout they can go back to the earth as composted. The garden, fresh air and hard work has been good for me (and I am sure my colleagues).Some of the unexpected benefits of this experience have been good feeling skin, great sleep, movement, being out from behind a desk, mental clarity and bring home a new skill. 

The garden at the end of the day