Back from Spring Break!

A belated welcome back from Spring Break, everyone! I hope it was a great first week back. The garden enjoyed the rain -- did you? Come see the wisteria in bloom over the green dome -- it looks & smells magical! And stay tuned, we are getting new redwood stumps for seating in the green dome and we'll be transitioning the pond area into a seating area as well. Our current redwood seats are turning back into soil. They've lasted over 6 years, though! Untreated redwood is a great choice if you are planning to build a raised garden bed at your home -- it holds up well against pests and weather.

The green dome covered with blooming wisteria.

wisteria blooms

This week our students had the opportunity to try out all the different types of citrus growing in the garden. They made observations about the appearance and taste of eight different types of citrus and learned some cool facts. Did you know that the demand for lemons and their scurvy-preventing properties hit a peak during the California Gold Rush? Miners paid top dollar for citrus. As a result, an abundance of lemon trees and other citrus were planted throughout California.

Our garden has a variety of citrus: navel and valencia oranges, Bearss limes, Meyer and Eureka lemons, Oro Blanco grapefruit, Dancy tangerines, mandarins, and more! Citrus are frost sensitive, and we're lucky to live in a climate where they flourish. Come try some from the garden before they are gone for this season.

In other news, first and second graders joined Garden Club this week. They started out with a rainbow stir fry, which featured onions, kale and peas from the garden. They liked the kale in the stir fry so much, they decided to harvest some to bring home to their families! Success.

Kale growing in the EPACS garden