Lavender for the YurtMay 10: One of the first projects this year's interns are tackling involves planting a bed of 100 lavender plants in front of the yurt built by last year's interns.
The area in front of the yurt is actually the drainfield for the dining hall's gray water system. By planting lavender on top of the drainfield, we'll be able to get a second use out of that water.
The first step was to bring in some well composed dirt to improve the clayish soil. We've found that if we just dig a hole to plant something, the walls of the hole often act like a clay pot and limit the ability of the plant's roots to spread out. We brought four front bucket loads of good planting soil up and spread it out evenly over the area we want to plant with lavender.
The next step was for Becca and Alison to take turns using the roto-tiller to work the top soil into the bed. May 11: The next step was to plant the lavender starts on a staggered 18" grid.
Then a layer of clean straw was added and wet down as the start of the mulch that we'll use to keep the new plants moist and growing.
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