From the mouths of babes (well, almost)

Liz Neely's grade one/two class, from St. Thomas More School, visited our garden last week.  Not only did they enjoy exploring our new community space, but they chipped in and helped with planting the communal beds and spreading chips on the paths!  Here are their thoughts about their day in our garden:

“I liked when I was pushing the wheelbarrow full of wood chips.”  Teagan

“I liked carrying the grass.”  Dez

“I liked filling in the paths with wood chips.”  Isaac, Talen

“I liked when we were looking at the plants.”  Kimberly

“I liked putting the potatoes in the dirt.”  Audric

“I liked helping make the pumpkin patch.”  Kali, Brilyn

“I liked throwing the rabbit food onto the sod.”  Daniel

“I liked putting the worms on the orange sheet (tarp).”  Tyler

“I liked putting the potatoes in the holes.”  Brileigh

“I liked planting the broccoli.”  Andrew

“I liked planting the cabbage.”  Sophia

“I liked putting the wood chips in the pathway.”  Ricardo

Here comes the weekend!

Smoky barbecues, patio chairs, tall cold drinks – summer’s on its way as the May long weekend rolls in! The weather is supposed to cooperate, so take an hour or two to come down to the gardens and see what’s happening.

As you arrive, notice the tidy arrangement of water barrels along the wall of the church. We’re still fine-tuning the set-up to make watering easier. For now, feel free to fill watering cans from the creek at the edge of the site.

Family Plots

If you have one of the family plots, you’ll see that some members have started a ditch along one side and a drain-away gulley down to the end of the site. Getting that ditch to go all around the garden would be a good idea.

Also, if someone can think of a clever way to put a tube or pipe in the drain-away ditch, that would be helpful. It would be nice if we could cover up the ditches with sod to make mowing easier for the church.

Finally, think about drainage as you plan your plots. Make at least one gulley in your bed to help the clay soil release its water down to the ditch. Use the soil to hill up your bed so that you have a high, dry mounds.

Communal Bed

Thanks to the Grades 1 and 2 classes from St. Thomas More School, four-year-old Andrew Zhang, and a few adult volunteers, one-third of the communal bed was planted on Thursday. Not much has come up yet, but you can admire their handiwork. Everyone was good and muddy by the end of the afternoon, and we all know each other a little better!

Barbara will take over planning the remainder of the garden after she returns from England on Tuesday If you’re interested in helping out with planting tomatoes, peppers, ground cherries, melons, cucumbers, squash, and beans, that work will probably start late in the week. We’ll keep you posted.

If you have time to volunteer over the weekend, here are some tasks that need to be done:

·         Finish building the pumpkin patch: Cheryl, Deb, Bill, and 25 youngsters made a great start in hauling the sod over to the new pumpkin patch. They found that both wheelbarrows and sleds work well. The goal is to build it up to knee-high and get rid of the sold pile, so if you have some time to volunteer, this is an important job. Once the bed is built, we’ll decide if we need to solar-cook it with clear plastic to kill the sod over two weeks, or if we can plant the pumpkins right away.

·         Dig gulleys and mound soil in the empty beds: The south and centre beds of the communal gardens still have piles of compost that need to be raked, and they need some gulleys to drain off the water. There should be a gulley along each of the raised paths. If you have a shovel and can take on this task, that would be great. We may need to add more drainage later, but we have to plan where the paths go first. Keep in mind that the water drains toward the parking lot and toward the back of the lot.

Tomato Time?

According to http://www.theweathernetwork.com, night-time temperatures will be above 10 degrees from now until at least early June. So you can consider putting out your tomatoes, peppers, and cucurbits. A basic rule of thumb: If you have to wear gloves to go out at night, it’s too cold for tomatoes.

What does a distressed tomato look like?

·         New leaves are chartreuse: Instead of rich green, the youngest leaves are light green. This is a sign that the roots are too cold to absorb nutrients. The plant needs a dose of liquid fertilizer and something to warm the soil.

·         The leaves round upward like little canoes: Curling leaves is a reaction to the cold, kind of like shivering. Wrap the plant in clear plastic to make a mini greenhouse.

·         The stem turns red: Red-stemming means the plant can’t absorb minerals. Give liquid fertilizer till the stem turns green again.

Why are the lettuce and carrot beds covered?

Small seeds take a while to germinate. They have to stay moist the whole time. Covering seed beds with old towels or T-shirts helps prevent evaporation. After a week, we’ll remove the covers so that the rooted seeds can get sunlight.

Church Plant Sale

The Good Thief Church on Union Street is having a plant sale on Saturday, May 28. If you haven’t purchased all your veggies by then, you might want to check it out.


Nancy

Watch the weather, not the calendar

Some people plant all their vegetables on the May long weekend. This works for flowers, but it isn’t so great for vegetables.

Cool-weather vegetables go in the garden early April to early May (peas, spinach, lettuce, some brassicas, onions). These plants go in the ground as soon as the soil can be worked, provided you have good drainage.

Mid-weather vegetables go in the garden late April to late May (carrots, potatoes, some brassicas, late lettuces, most herbs). These plants need night-time temperatures steadily above 6 degrees, preferably closer to 10 degrees.

Hot-weather vegetables go in the garden late May to early June (tomatoes, peppers, beans, melons, squash). These plants need night-time temperatures steadily above 10 degrees, preferably closer to 15 degrees. Most of these plants get diseases or stop growing in cool soil.

So instead of looking at the calendar, look at http://www.theweathernetwork.com. Find the 14-day trend. It will show expected day-time highs and night-time lows for the next two weeks.

Since this has been a La Nina spring (cool and wet), spring is late. Don’t plan on putting tomatoes out on schedule this year.

If you’re a new gardener, you might want to consider getting a beginner’s gardening book out of the library and reading it cover to cover. It’s handy to know some basic techniques.

Nancy

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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