Seed Lending Library, Beeswax Food Wrap and Greenhouse Adventures

 Today we welcomed a new CFE member, Cody, to the group He will introduce himself in the next blog post. Today was his first time touring the Orchard Gardens. We were happy that he has joined the team.

(Gen, Anna and Cody)

In the morning we began by preparing materials for making our very own reusable beeswax food wraps. Many of us had seen these sold for a pretty penny. Today we had the chance to try our hands at creating them ourselves, which was more straightforward than we were expecting! We relied on the collective efforts of our peers to assure we had enough beeswax grated, and irons heated, parchment paper cut, and natural material cloth (like cotton or linen) cut and ready for use.

We took a pause in our food-wrap making to go down to the Scarfe Library. At this library (as well as the Woodward Library), there is a seed lending cabinet. This cabinet is available to the public and contains an abundance of different seeds to be borrowed. Each drawer has envelopes of various vegetable, flower, and herb seeds. Our group enjoyed selecting a few seeds that we would later bring to the greenhouse to germinate. We chose dill, marigolds, beets, lemon balm, and tomatillo. 

It is encouraged to bring back the seeds produced from the plants that grow from the borrowed seeds to maintain the library. This seed lending program is a wonderful way to make gardening available to the community. 

We made our way down to the greenhouse. We were informed that this was a site where  researchers were actively working on projects. Thus, we were unable to take pictures of the greenhouse itself. In place of, we were able to photograph the adorable residents of the greenhouse- two of the cutest cats! After giving Charlie and Lola plenty of attention, we planted and watered our seeds before setting them up in the first zone of the greenhouse. The first zone is intended to be the most environmentally protective of the plants and seeds, as they are in a fragile condition. Gradually, our seeds will move through the other zones as they become stronger and more resilient.