Hi everyone! This is the same information I just sent via email, but wanted to include it in our first blog of the year!
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I spent much of the day at the garden, cleaning plots, preparing my garden beds, etc. I made it home just in time to avoid the rain!
The garden is starting to look really great, but there is much work to do. I need to bring attention to the fact that many gardeners from last year did not clean their plots and put their gardens to bed. The plots that were put to bed are practically weed free and almost ready to go. The others will require quite a bit more work to get them ready for the season. If you are new to the garden/did not have a plot last year, your garden plot will be cleaned out for you before you begin.
This is a reminder (not scolding!) that your responsibilities within the garden include cleaning the beds once you are done, so please keep this in mind (don't worry, there will be many more reminders of this towards the end of the growing season!). This is important for a few reasons: if you decide not to come back the following year, the plot will be ready for the next season's gardener. Also, it helps to reduce weeds and other unwanted plants in the garden. Those who did not remove plants from last year may seed the garden with unwanted plants in subsequent years (creating unecessary work for garden staff and the new gardener). This also places a heavy burden on garden staff to clean up all these plots. It is much easier for everyone to take responsibility for their own plots than to leave it for a couple of people to do. Thank you thank you thank you!!
More:
Facebook Group
I've just created a new Facebook Group for our garden. Please check it out: FSRN Campus Community Garden...and JOIN! It contains a bunch of photos from last year (more of these to come) and some photos from today. I will also post events, updates, and anything else related to the garden there. This will hopefully help facilitate communication between us. I recognize that not everyone uses Facebook, so I will keep the blog from last year up and update that regularly as well (more info below).
There is another group called Food Security Research Network Campus Community Garden...This is NOT the site. This was one I tried to put together but changed it (and have not deleted it yet). Please ignore!
Garden Blog
Last year, we created a garden blog that can be found at: http://fsrncampuscommunitygarden.blogspot.com/. It wasn't used a ton last year, but I will keep it up and running for those of you who prefer that to Facebook.
I will continue to post on the blog and send a note when I make entries. You are all more than welcome to post on there as well!
This is an ORGANIC garden!
I have been told that there may have been a few gardeners last year who used non-organic methods for eradicating insects and weeds (yikes!). This is an absolute no-no! Non-organic inputs and treatment are forbidden in the garden. I am working on putting together a list of acceptable treatments, fertilizers, etc. and will have that to you all shortly.
Garden workshop series
I am currently putting together a series of gardening workshops that will run for 4 months, from the end of May until the end of September. They will be held every second Monday evening at 6:30pm in either the garden or the greenhouse classroom (on campus-directions to follow). If you have any workshop topics you'd like to have covered, please submit them asap. Also let me know if you'd like to facilitate one!
We did several workshops last year and they were not extremely well attended. This workshop series will be open to all gardeners within the Community Garden Collective, a group of community gardens in Thunder Bay. Other gardeners are also welcome to attend. More info coming soon!
Best Practices document:
Based on great suggestions from a few gardeners last year, I will be creating a 'best practices' document on the Facebook page (I will also post this on the Blog). Our garden is a wonderful place, full of gardeners with diverse knowledge and experience and we should be sharing and celebrating this (and gleaning success stories).
I've started to create this document today and it includes some of my best practices (i.e. the things that worked best for me). Would you all please give some thought to the things that worked best for you in the garden? What kinds of things did you do get good yields? To grow the biggest and best and tastiest food? To battle the bugs and weeds (using organic means, or course!). To get the tallest sunflowers, etc.
The document is on the right hand side of the group page...check it out. I don't know if you can add your best practices directly to the document (probably not), so please send them to me and I will add them for you. You will all be able to see it.
I'm going to plant!!!!
I was inspired by Nicole and Mike last year, who planted very early in the season last year and got about 1 month extra food-growing time. I've been doing some research, and I'm going to do an early planting of:
onions, kale, peas, radish, and spinach (hooray!). These should be find, even if (when?) we get another frost.
Wish me luck!
As always, there is much more to include, but this is getting long. Thanks for getting through it! I was very happy to spend some time in the garden today and a couple of gardeners from last year stopped by check on their plots. I am looking forward to seeing all the gardeners from last year and to meeting the new gardeners this year.
Again, you are welcome to go to the garden anytime now. I'll be planting as soon as it dries up a bit more (hopefully this week!)
Have a great weekend and stay dry!
Lee-Ann
Campus Garden Coordinator
