Garden Activities: April 21, 2026

Based on the tardiness of this report and the iffy forecast for rain on Tuesday you can be forgiven for thinking we cancelled the work day. However, the forecast was only for an hour or two of light rain starting when we would be leaving. So we didn’t cancel. A few drops hit the car as I was driving to the garden, and Bill Dobner and others experienced the same thing. Given a desire not to get a lot of tools out, wet and muddy if it really started to rain harder, we decided to walk the garden and take note of issues the team could address on subsequent work days.

Bill Dobner decided to stay and do a minimal amount of tending to the compost operation. I am happy to report that Avinash Bahadur has jumped into his expanded role assisting Bill. He sends a brief email letting some key individuals know the status of the operations which I’m sure is useful to Bill and the propagation team.

Braving the dubious weather were: Julia Appelrouth, Beverly Kemmerling, Susanna Mac, Daryl Stutley, Nancy Taylor Walker, Marna Wensil, Anne Wiktor-Becker, Ann Wright, and myself.

The first potential job involves the rickety arbor in the rare fruit orchard.

As you can see, it has all but collapsed and is covered by a mass of grape and passion fruit vines that are also smothering a nearby cumquat. In addition there are an apple tree espaliered to the remaining upright portion of the arbor and a couple of dragoon fruit vines in pots.

Daryl looking to see what, if anything, is under the collapsed arbor.

It appears there is no one maintaining the arbor, so it would seem the best option is to dismantle the arbor, clean up and discard the vines (we have them elsewhere), allow the apple tree to assume a natural form or re-espalier it to a new stand-alone trellis, and either discard or move to another location the pots of dragon fruit which would also require construction of a stand alone trellis. Daryl will spearhead a discussion of this with the board. 

So we could canvas the garden, we took the zig zag path up the hill and on the way, though we hadn’t brought tools of any sort, some of the group couldn’t pass by weeds without taking the opportunity to pull them. As a result it became clear we needed some 15-gallon pots to collect the weeds so Susanna and Julia retrieved a couple which, because of the volume of weeds collected, had to be periodically emptied without the use of a cart that we hadn’t brought with us.

Julia and Susanna with pulled mustard and thistle.

Ann looking at a stretch of path she had cleared a few weeks back leaving only the smallest of plants that were now beginning to set seed.

Ann in front of a bed of bulbine that will be ready to dead head in 2-3 weeks.

Beverly got a group shot of us on the way up the hill.

After looking over the desert garden it began to rain more heavily so we called it a day.

Many thanks to Beverly, Nancy and Marna for their images!

Enjoy the garden….KMM