Today marks the final day of the Mountaintop Summer Experience program! I am grateful to have had a lot of time to focus on the project and enhance the space. We faced a lot of challenges, but persevered. I am excited to get back in the fall semester and improve the space even further.

At The Park

1. Finishing pathway herb spiral 
   1. I am so happy that my plan for the pathway has been completed around the herb spiral! This design was intended to enhance the visual appeal of the park as well as accessibility. We were able to finish the section around the herb spiral, which included digging up sod, laying down cardboard, and adding wood chips. We will still need to source large amounts of wood chips to finish the pathway down to the sidewalk and to freshen up the herb spiral, so I contacted BrightView to get wood chips delivered before the fall semester begins. 
2. Planting fall crops 
   1. Wednesday afternoon we added fall flowers to planters near the parking lot, and fall greens in two petal beds. This includes swiss chard, collard greens, and spinach. We planted these crops at the right time so we are hoping to see them flourish next semester!
3. Park maintenance and preparation for next semester 
   1. Because we will not be working on the park for around two weeks, and students will be moving in soon, it was imperative that we cleaned up the park to ensure that nothing was an obstruction to the campus community. This included putting away and organizing several items such as planters, throwing away trash, moving cold frames to behind the house, weeding around the path and the petal beds, and moving the giant log to the hugelkultur. I also added cucumber cages around the plants and weeded the annual garden bed. I also pruned the tomatoes again to ensure they will stay healthy and grow beautiful fruits for us to harvest when we return. 
4. Petal bed incident 
   1. At the beginning of the week, we were surprised to see a few of the petal beds had been merged. We learned that a student had gone ahead to merge the beds and plant tomatoes, chili peppers, and spinach without permission.  I took the initiative to reach out to the student and clarified our plans for the park and the petal bed redesign. I spoke with him to ask for permission and to consult with us prior to changing the park landscape in any way. This definitely helped me to step out of my comfort zone and deal with confrontation. All is well and this is a great lesson for the team to set better guidelines for people when they want to use the park for growing. 

Virtual work 

1. Wood/facebook marketplace 
   1. I took the initiative to upload our discarded wood on facebook marketplace in hopes that we can get rid of all of the waste sustainably. We have had a lot of interest and pick-ups throughout the week. This has helped us maintain our permaculture practice of zero-waste. 
2. BrightView chipdrop 
   1. I got in contact with facilities to deliver wood chips on-site to use on our pathway. The chips we currently have are fairly broken down, so adding an additional layer will freshen up the landscape and will reduce the amount of weeds. 
3. Website
   1. I continued to revise the website content this week, focusing more on restructuring the navigability of content and working through the plant profiles. 
4. Health and Wellness Center update 
   1. On Monday, I emailed the students from the sophomore pLUnge program who are implementing a community fridge in the Health and Wellness Center. The fridge will most likely be set up in the middle of the semester; in the meantime, we can continue to give out all our produce to people at the Bethlehem Farmers’ Market and Plant A Row. 
5. Plant A Row
   1. To close out our week, I harvested tomatoes, peppers, and a lot of sage for Isabelle to donate to Plant A Row.