Turn, turn, turn

Before you plant anything, turn your soil. Using a shovel, dig about 10-15 cm down and flip it over. Do this all over your bed. Then chop the chunks and rake it. This helps mix the compost into the top few cm of clay.

Then form your bed into mounds with water channels between them. This will help keep your plants’ roots from rotting in standing water. Clay isn’t great for gard ening, and CPCG will work on getting more soil amendments for next year. For this year, we have to work with what we’ve got.

Nancy

Where did all the compost go?

If you visit your community garden bed today, you might wonder where all your compost went. The lovely chocolate colour has given way to a slate-grey sludge. That slate-grey sludge is clay. Water doesn’t soak through clay, so it just sits on top. Your compost floated around in the rain, then sank down into the clay. You may not see any compost at all, or you might just see traces of it.

What it means is that you don’t have enough compost. So grab and shovel and get a couple more wheelbarrows-full for your plot before it’s gone.

Nancy

Drainage challenges

Today, the amount of rain exposed drainage problems in our new garden. Both beds were pools of water. Under the layers of topsoil and compost is a bed of clay on limestone. Since the site is so flat, the rain has no where to go.

Nancy dug a ditch around the communal bed today to give the water an exit from the garden bed. The ditch drains to the back of the site. We will have to take a look at the family plots. We may want to consider digging a ditch system there as well.

A new community digs in

 Many thanks to our community gardeners who came together, despite the constant downpour, and helped get our garden beds ready for planting. For more photos, check out our Picasa album.

Let's get started!

The rain and cool temperatures have created a perfect opportunity to get cool-weather plants into the ground.  

Nancy Mucklow has created a handy tip sheet for first-time gardeners. You'll find it linked in the Gardening Tips section of this blog.  She recommends planting your seeds and seedlings in blocks rather than rows to maximize your growing space. She also strongly recommends making row/block markers so that you can remember where the peas and beans are tucked into the soil.

The communal gardening team will be busy this week planting peas, snow peas, snap peas, cabbage and broccoli seedlings, spinach, kale, a variety of lettuces, green onions, potatoes and raspberries! Carrots will have to wait for the end of this cold snap.  If you're on this team, please contact Nancy to find out planting times.

Volunteers from the Enviro Club at St. Thomas More school will be helping us out with the planting. Thanks very much to the students and staff!

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Join the work bee on Saturday!

First, a big "THANK YOU" to Parker and his crew for an amazing job removing sod from our garden area! If anyone is in need of some strips of sod, please help yourself to the substantial pile at the back of the church property.

 

We need lots of help this Saturday to continue the garden preparations.  Three big piles of compost, topsoil and woodchips need to be distributed to all the garden plots so please bring a shovel, heavy rake and (if possible) a wheelbarrow.  If you don't have the tools yourself, we should have extras.  

 

The Saturday weather forecast is looking better and better but we'll be there rain or shine starting from 9:30.  If you don't have the time or strength for this labour, please stop by anyway to support the workers and see what's getting accomplished.  Children, friends, neighbours, picnics,... ALL are welcome.  

 

This is the day to choose your family plot or make suggestions for the communal beds.  We'll also be collecting membership fees (cash please) and signed membership agreements.  

 

Cheryl Fischer

Garden Site Coordinator

It's Official!

The Calvin Park Community Garden Steering Committee is delighted to announce that an agreement with Cookes-Portsmouth United Church was finalized this evening.  The church has generously agreed to host our garden on the expansive green space tucked behind their church.

 

The Committee would like to express it's gratitude to the Cookes-Portsmouth church family for supporting us in this endeavour.  May it bring our community closer together! 

Garage sale a great success!

The garage sale yesterday was a big success! The weather was perfect, we had a steady stream of interested buyers, and we raised $700 for our community garden! This money will be put to good use paying for insurance and soil and starting a tool shed fund.

This was truly a group effort. Thank you to all of you who contributed items and baked delicious treats for our bake sale. Thank you to Nancy, Barbara, Karen, Donna, Kim and Sarah for helping to sell yesterday. Thank you to Parker for the signs.

I would especially like to thank Barbara  Walker for her support before the sale, on the day of the sale, and for her donation of many lovely plants to our successful plant sale. A big thank you to Nancy Mucklow for her advice, fabulous pricing job and for being the earliest volunteer yesterday!

It was great to meet some of the other members of the Calvin Park Community Garden and I look forward to meeting more of you on Saturday May 16^th.

Great job!!

Joanna