Growing AND preserving food for increased food security

Many of you have been asking how you can donate extra food that you are not able to use. I have been thinking more about this and one of the goals of the garden is to increase local food security through community gardening/growing our own food. If this is to be achieved, it is important to learn (or re-learn) how to also preserve food for months when we are not able to grow. I understand such things as lettuce and such are not easily preserved but much of the other greens (i.d. spinach, chard, chinese greens, etc.), root vegetables, peas, beans, tomatoes, squash, etc., are.

We are planning a workshop that will provide information on how to preserve the food that you grow. I will send out info on when that workshop will be held soon. Unfortunately the workshop won't be a 'demo' as we don't have a space for it, but there will be a lot of information that will be useful to you in helping you to put some food away for winter.

I am still looking at a system for gardeners to donate unused food to local food charities. The idea of the Thursda evening pick up won't work, so I'm looking into something else. I'll keep you all posted.
More soon!

Tomato Diseases

While I was at the garden yesterday, I was approached by two gardeners who were concerned about an apparent tomato disease affecting many of the tomato plants in the garden. When we took a closer look, many of the tomato plants in the centre and side closest to the river have shriveled black leaves. I have been doing some research to figure out what is going on and I believe it is early tomato blight.

I have included a few links here so that you may try to diagnose the problem on your plant. I hope this helps. It appears to not be affecting, as severely, the tomato plants towards the back of the garden (closer to Oliver Road), but I will keep an eye on it. Please keep me posted as this develops. The first link provides information on how to treat this disease (in an organic garden).

http://organicgardening.about.com/b/2009/07/05/diagnosing-tomato-diseases-is-it-early-blight-late-blight-or-septoria.htm

http://www.google.ca/images?q=early+blight+on+tomatoes&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7GPEA_en&redir_esc=&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=univ&ei=_IRNTNCvIsTYnAeS7ozZCw&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CDgQsAQwAw

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/tomato.html

Hope these help! More information coming soon!

Upcoming garden workshops and garden update

Hello gardeners. This is a reminder that Dustin will be putting on a workshop at the garden tomorrow (Tuesday) evening between 6:30 and 7:30 pm. The workshop will be on garden soils. It will be very informal (i.e. standing...as we have no tables to sit at).

Next Tuesday evening, at the same time, Pascal will lead a workshop on composting (see how our compost pile is shrinking? It's working!). We are putting together more workshops and hope to hold one every week or two until the end of the season. I will forward a list of topics and dates once we have them finalized.

The garden looks amazing! I'm running to a meeting now but have much more to say so will have more posts soon.

Coming up:
-tomato diseases
-food security and food preservation

Have a wonderful day and I will hope to see you all at the workshop tomorrow!

Garden Workshops

Hello Campus gardeners! I wanted to let you know that Dustin will be putting on a workshop about soils next Tuesday evening, July 27th, between 6:30 and 7:30pm at the garden. He will be covering soil components and textures, soil pH, how to amend soils, and more. It will be a very informal workshop and we invite all to attend. Children are always welcome! We are putting together some other workshops and they will be forthcoming. I will send a schedule shortly.

I harvested a large quantity of peas and beans from my plot today and feasted with tremendous gratitude this evening. My boys could not get enough! I am amazed at how swiftly things are progressing in the garden. It looks amazing. If you have extra food that can be donated to a local food bank, please let me know and we can make arrangements. I will look forward to seeing you all in the garden soon!

Garden Work Party Thursday July 15, 7-9pm

Just a reminder about the work party tomorrow evening between 7 and 9pm. It seems many people are at the garden at that time so I thought I'd try to coordinate with that. If tomorrow doesn't work for you, not to worry...there will be other opportunities. We will be focussing on weeding the pathways tomorrow (it is a constant battle), but we've had other suggestions from gardeners on how we can all get our volunteer hours in.

Please bring shovels or other weed-digging implements. I look forward to seeing you all there!