"Midpines, Pride Of The Sierra" - Yosemite Bug Rustic Mountain Resort, Midpines, CA

Make it 433 til June Mr. Mayor!

We're now in the middle of week 7 here in Midpines and things are cranking!  It's been a long process to get to where we are now but it seems our projects are finally bearing fruit (although not yet literally).

All 38 raised beds are double-height with new boards, many re-gopher-wired, and all filled with manure and mushroom compost.  Kim has been in charge of organizing garden planting while Curt has been in charge of creating and assembling the drip irrigation system.  All of our squash and cucumbers are planted and have sprouted.  The tomatoes have been transplanted and are doing great.  The peppers, eggplants, and basil are looking good but won't be transferred from their home in the greenhouse for another few weeks.  These are all the main crops destined for the Cafe at the Bug, where they will be transformed into delicious gourmet meals for the hostel guests (and us employees!)  We've also planted some beans, tomatillos, dill, okra, peas, carrots, radishes, beets, chard, lettuce, turnip, parsnip, and corn.  Our drip system is totally set up and functional in the North Garden (the big one!) and we've started to set up a system for the South Garden.

Overlapping projects for garden success!

We had a bit of trouble with some bitten chard and bean sprouts (as well as random bite marks on other things) and ramped up our regimen of pest control.  We created a pepper/garlic spray (using ingredients from the Cafe) for the seedlings in the greenhouse and got some neem oil and diatomaceous earth to rid the garden of slugs and bugs.

Givin' those plants a spritz of garlic/pepper!

Our bags of oyster mushrooms that we got at our mushroom class have gone nuts and we already cut and ate a batch.

This picture was when they were real small but after a few days they were huge.  Next batch we'll try to get a big picture.  We've had some fun weekend times with the Bug hosting a well-known area band called Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit (long name, good band- look them up on YouTube!)

We ended up picking up a similar aged hitchhiking man and because he couldn't find a ride all the way to Yosemite he came to the show with us!  We also got invited to Mariposa Fun Day (that's probably not what it was called but that's what it was) which was the next town over from Midpines (which is not much of a 'town' at all).  We drank some awesome locally brewed beer at Prospector's (on tap at the Bug Cafe woo-hoo), listened to some live music, got to check out the Mariposa museum of the olden tyme gold-diggin' days, and even saw the 'Cirque de Sierra' which was a circus style event hosted by what appeared to be local young people of Mariposa.  All good fun!

Curt and Doug after the Cirque de Sierra, clown noses and all!

For more good fun check out our latest pictures on Facebook!