October 4th, 2024

The first week of October is already almost over! The temperature has noticeably dropped, the trees are starting to change colours, and there’s a certain spooky-ness in the air.

Fall is a great time in the garden, because there is sooo much harvesting to do! There are lots of people around the garden, and lots of people encouraging others to take some of their abundant harvests! We love to see everyone using and enjoying the garden space, and as is probably obvious, seeing folks sharing food warms our little hearts<3

Speaking of sharing food, my first update is that our annual Harvest Party is this afternoon! It’s rainy this morning, but the forecast for the afternoon is dry and we are hoping to maybe even see a bit of sunshine (but even if we don’t, we have tents that will be set up to keep everyone dry and comfy). I picked up a bunch of pumpkins this morning (shoutout to Country Grocer in Esquimalt for giving me a discount on these!!), we’re picking up the zucchini racetrack this afternoon, and we’re meeting volunteers in the garden at 2pm to get everything set up! Starting at 3pm, we’ll have a potluck, pumpkin carving, zucchini racing, seed saving, crafting, games, and more going on in the garden. Join us anytime from 3 ‘till sundown!!

This week was a little different for us - with some staff away and some special projects going on we had to shift our focus a bit. One of the main things going on in our office this week was our hiring committee hard at work conducting interviews for our two open work-study positions. We had some really amazing applicants and the decisions have been tough, but we are so excited to welcome some new members to our team! If you interviewed with us, you should hear back either today or early next week (just because of approvals needed before we can send out our emails). 

On Tuesday afternoon we were supposed to have our beekeeping workshop with Barry, but because of a miscommunication with the scheduling the beekeeping workshop pivoted into an edible fower workshop and garden tour! We’re so grateful to our community for their understanding and their adaptability, and we ended up having such a fun afternoon meeting new folks, trying new things, making bouquets of flowers, and learning more about the garden! The beekeeping workshop will be rescheduled for another time this year (probably in the Spring!), so keep an eye out for that if you are interested!

Things settle down a bit event-wise over the next week, which is great because it gives us a bit more time to focus on all of the other things we have going on! The new accessible bed is going to be built this month, the third issue of Sundew comes out November 1st, we’ll have two new staff members joining us, we have SO much harvesting to do, and we’ll be working to get the garden ready for winter very soon! Of course, we do have some more events coming up this month - we’ll be doing a garlic planting workshop in the garden on October 16th, and on the 31st we have a candle-making workshop and trick-or-treating! Keep an eye on our Instagram for details about those :)

That’s it for me today - I hope to see some of your this afternoon at the Harvest Party! But even if I don’t see you this afternoon, I hope you have a wonderful weekend<3

Happy gardening,
Jessi