From the Gardens Registrar: Mowing (i.e., Why Does It Look Like This?); Other Garden Residents; Dogs; Bicycles

Hello Gardeners,

MOWING –  Mowing started for the season at Eagle Heights last week. Under a new agreement, our paths are being mowed by UW Housing employees. They were told to just mow a strip down the middle of the path, and later we would take care of the edges. Unfortunately, on some paths, they mowed only a very narrow strip, leaving very wide and tall sections of grass and weeds next to the plots. This is not how we want the paths to look, and we apologize. The original idea behind this plan was that we would follow up to trim the edges with weekend volunteer crews. Of course, due to the virus, we can’t have workdays. Still, we will get these edges knocked down as soon as we can, and in future, the mowers will mow wider paths. It’s a new system for us, and communication was poor, but it will get better from here.

Also, Housing employees will start mowing at University Houses as well.

OTHER GARDEN RESIDENTS – The Eagle Heights Garden shares space with several other gardening entities. One is F.H. King, a student organization named after Franklin Hiram King, a professor of agricultural science at UW, who is considered the father of sustainable farming. Another is the Greenhouse Learning Community, another student group focused on the environment; and CALS – the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. These other groups have garden space, which they use to grow vegetables to share with the UW community, or for research.

There are also many non-human residents of Eagle Heights and University Houses Gardens. They include animals that annoy us by eating our vegetables, such as voles and turkeys. But we are very proud to also share our space with sandhill cranes and red-tailed hawks. This year, we have a resident crane family, with one colt (that’s a young crane.) The hawks also raise young in our gardens every year. And both cranes and hawks eat voles, which is only part of why we like them. More than 250 varieties of birds have been seen at the Lakeshore Preserve, which adjoins our gardens, and many of those birds can be spotted among our plots, including bluebirds, wrens, and many others.

If you’re not familiar with voles, here is some information about them, including a number of nontoxic approaches to getting rid of them: https://www.almanac.com/pest/voles

As for turkeys, a garden near mine has been decorated with holographic tape to scare them away. I’ve tried to find out whether or not this works, but all the websites I can find are either selling the tape, or else claiming it’s useless because they want to sell you a different product. I hope it works, but all I know so far is that it certainly gives that garden a festive air.

DOGS – Many of our gardeners bring their dogs to the garden when they are working in their plots. And also, many people who live in the neighborhood walk their dogs in our gardens. We like dogs, and this is all good. But for many reasons, dogs MUST be on leash when they’re not in your own plot. We don’t want dogs running loose, messing with other people’s gardens, or scaring children and wildlife. Earlier this week, there was a scary confrontation between an unleashed dog and our crane family. Fortunately, cranes can take care of themselves. But if you’re not willing to leash your dog, please leave it at home.

BICYCLES – While I’m on the subject, we also like bicycles, and no you don’t have to keep them on leash. But please ride them only in the gardens – bikes aren’t allowed in the Lakeshore Preserve. And lock your bike – we’ve had one stolen from the gardens this year.

Happy Gardening, and Stay Safe,  

Kathryn