The Mulching Team

Some folks pay $90 a month for a gym membership. Why waste the money when you can come to Ben Nobleman Park on a weekend morning and do some hoeing, mulching, weeding, weed bag shlepping, and other fitness activities?  Working in the orchard is great for core strength, muscle toning, cardio-fitness and other great stuff and it makes our little park look so much more beautiful. Or so says Sherry, our garden fitness trainer du jour!

After at least a month focusing on the pollinator garden, we now have some time to lavish attention on our fruit trees and the patch around the pears and plums was ripe for a serious weeding session. Instead of pulling the thistle this time, we took our Fiskar’s hoes and hoed them down making it quick and easy work and preventing the weeds from going to seed. We’ll need to do that on a regular basis. Our hope is at some point Parks and Rec will put sod down in that area, which will look great and make our work easier.

After hoeing, we used our remaining mulch, donated by Parks, Forestry and Recreation, to mulch around the fruit trees. The rings of mulch will help retain moisture around the roots of the trees and prevent weeds from popping up.

And in other news from Ben Nobleman Park: We now have evidence that pollinators have indeed found the pollinator bed. Butterflies and bees have already started fluttering around the new plants and they look happy indeed.

Pollinators have found the pollinator garden