The Latest Dirt - September 2024
News From Our Garden
By Janet Miller
As the season turns from summer to fall, the work at Our Garden never ends. While we are still harvesting over 500 pounds of food each week, we are also, one by one, pulling summer crops from beds and replanting them with cool-weather veggies. Many beautiful seedlings are growing happily in the propagation area, ready to go in the ground. By the way, we are making many of those seedlings available for sale to Master Gardeners and our visitors. We also have a nice variety of cover crop seed bagged up and available for sale each Wednesday. We, of course, are still battling rodents, aphids and various mites – all of which seem to thrive in hot weather! Still, we are a happy and industrious group of volunteers, answering questions from our many visitors and demonstrating how to grow food and deal with challenges as they arise.
Steve Danzinger and his wife Leesa Evans, both CoCoMGs, enjoying an event at Our Garden. Photo by Fred Teensma.
All of our volunteers contribute hugely to the success of Our Garden, and we work well as a team. However, sometimes, we need to acknowledge someone who goes above and beyond and contributes something unique to the effort. This time, that person is Master Gardener Steve Danziger. You can generally find Steve in the back of the garden working on the compost operation, and it is quite an operation. He has teamed up with Joie Spinelli and a dedicated crew to churn out the beautiful, rich compost that makes Our Garden grow. Beyond the magic of compost, Steve brings other talents to the garden. He is the one who plans, organizes, and cooks for our famous luncheons under the oak tree. He pulls from our weekly harvest to cook up a dish that works with the day’s theme and, like the tale of the loaves and fishes or maybe just more magic, there is always enough. We have had anywhere from 20 to 60 people at those luncheons, and somehow, we never run out of food. He pulls off all of this with apparent ease and good humor and rarely chases anyone out of the kitchen! Steve’s wife, UC Master Gardener Leesa Evans, who brings her own talents to the garden, is always on hand to help but leaves the cooking to Steve. Those luncheons have become an essential part of the Our Garden culture, giving us all time to relax, socialize and bond without garden tools in hand. So this is a big shout-out and thank you to Steve Danziger (who we affectionately call Cookie) for all you give - we are all the better for it!
Cheers!
