From the Gardens Registrar: Mandarin Translation Needed; End of Season; Tool and Cart Put-Away; 2017 in Review; Many Thanks; A Repeat Listing of Upcoming Dates; NO WORKDAY THIS WEEKEND – WE’RE ALL DONE WITH WORKDAYS FOR THE SEASON

Hello Gardeners,

MANDARIN TRANSLATION NEEDED – We have revised our garden application and list of rules for next year, and need to update our Mandarin version. If you are fluent in Mandarin and English, and are willing to translate for us, please contact me. You will get workday credit for doing this.

END OF SEASON – December 3 is Closing Day for the gardens. This will be my last regular email for this year, although I will send an announcement on December 15 to confirm that our 2018 application is available. (Please don’t email me at 8am to tell me it isn’t on-line yet – it probably won’t be there until later in the day.)

PUTTING AWAY THE TOOLS AND CARTS – A reminder that on Sunday, December 3, we will be putting away most of the tools and carts at both gardens, and would appreciate some help. No, it does not count as a workday. The Put-Away Event will be 10am – Noon at Eagle Heights, and 12:30 – 1:30 at University Houses. Yes, we will leave a few carts and tools out of storage for the winter at both gardens.

THE YEAR IN REVIEW – 2017 was a difficult year for gardeners. In the spring, it rained and rained. Our vegetables and flowers grew fast, but so did the weeds. I know it was hard on people who had limited time to work on their plots - every time they had a spare half hour to weed, it was raining yet again. Meanwhile, at University Houses Gardens, there was no leaf mulch for months, due to the constant rain. Gardeners could clear their plots of weeds, but couldn’t mulch to keep the weeds from coming back. Then, in the summer and well into the fall, Eagle Heights Drive was being reconstructed, so EH gardeners had to park some distance away and walk farther to get to their plots. Again, this particularly made trouble for gardeners with limited time. Oh, and then a big tree came down on several plots.

All of these difficult conditions were beyond our control. But now that the street is finished, U Houses has lots of mulch, and our very nice new concrete pad at the EH weed pile is in place, next year has got to be better.

THANK YOU! – Thank you to everybody who had a garden plot this year and was part of our community. I would especially like to thank everybody who did a workday. (The new chipped paths look great.) I would also like to thank our garden workers, Will and Michaiah, for keeping the paths mowed and the elderly and quirky plumbing functioning, plus everything else they do to keep the gardens running. A big thank you to the volunteers who did special jobs – the members of the weed juries, the gardeners who took care of the beautiful plantings at the Arbor, the people who organized seeds and staffed the seed fair, the people who searched for missing corner and plot markers, our webmaster, our two Garden Committee Co-Chairs, and all those who attended our terrible, I mean terribly interesting, meetings.

UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER –

December 1      Deadline for paying the no-workday fee if you have not done a workday. ($32, payable to Division of University Housing, and mailed to or dropped off at EH Community Center, 611 Eagle Heights, Madison, WI, 53705. Be sure to include your plot number and write on the envelope that it’s for the Gardens.)

December 3      Closing Day for both gardens.

December 15    2018 Application will be available on our website, and also in paper form at the Community Center

February 15      Deadline for returning gardeners to renew their plots

March 24         Opening Day for 2018 (or around that date, anyway.)

April 7             Seed Fair at Eagle Heights Community Center

NO MORE WORKDAYS – We are done with workdays for this season.

Have a good winter,

Kathryn.