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Community Garden
New pictures of our garden growing - August 2010
  
  
WHAT'S UP WITH THE COMMUNITY GARDEN for 2010?
 The Beet House
Wondering what's happening in the Community Garden? Well as all of you gardeners out there know, garden work begins long before you're poking seeds into the soil. So back in February, the Community Sustainability Group met by the cozy fires in members' homes, and we began to plan our second season of growing veggies in the open greenhouse that Kartar and Gurbani are graciously letting us use once again. We have lovingly dubbed this the "Beet House" due to the massive number of beets we grew there last year.
But to backtrack a little bit - last fall we decided to put the soil of the Beet House to rest in a way that would continue to nourish the soil throughout the winter. We decided to experiment with mulching with free and plentiful mulch materials - fallen leaves. The workers at the ranch obliged us and dumped several truck loads of leaves from the ranch down at the Beet House. We happily spread them out in a layer that was probably 8 inches deep, and innocently said "Good night" to our sweet garden for the winter. Had we been smart (like we are now!) we would have mowed (yep, with a lawn mower) those leaves to make them into a finer mulch that would absorb more moisture, helping them to decay faster. Well, come March, we realized we had a very thick heavy layer of leaves underneath, with a whole lot of completely dry leaves on top. The leaves underneath were too matted to plant anything into and we had to do something to break them up. So we mowed - using 2 home mowers, and 1 rented heavy duty one, and then went over the whole area with a rototiller. It was a lot of work since the leaves underneath were already thick and wet and matted - which is why shredding/mowing the leaves in the fall would have been easier. Leaf mulch, by the way, is a real worm banquet! We're all amazed at how many worms we're finding down there and how big they are!
 Once the leaves were sufficiently chewed up, we needed to lay out our beds and pathways. Last year we took a much more "free-style" approach to our garden layout. This year we really thought out the width of the beds (3' - an easy reach from either side of the bed) and defined pathways so that we could leave the beds foot-print free. On the designated day to lay it all out, Nature greeted us that morning with sunny skies - and a blanket of snow! Ah Spring! But we had a great time and felt quite hardy and proud of ourselves that a little snow didn't stop us! The next task (after the snow had melted and the garden was dry) was to rake the leaf mulch off of the individual beds so that the soil could warm up enough to plant. Many seeds like to have warm soil for germination, and the leaf mulch would have kept the soil too cool. The mulch will be put back onto the beds to help keep roots cool as the air heats up throughout the spring and into summer.
The next major work "meeting" (as opposed to our sit-down potluck dinner meetings) was to lay out the drip irrigation, which also is new for us this year. Last year we bombarded everything with Rainbird type overhead sprinklers - the "chuk chuk chuk" kind. Sat Want Singh came to our rescue and helped us set up drip lines with "T" tape. We feel much better about using less water this way, and have also learned that some crops do not like overhead watering, so we'll have happier plants too!
One of the fun things we did this year also, is our "Adopt-a-Crop" approach. First we determined as a group what crops we would grow. Then each person who wanted to, "adopted" a particular crop or two. The adopter is responsible for knowing pretty much whatever we would need to know for that crop: when to plant, whether to start as seedlings or direct sow it, what nutrients it needs, how much water, when to harvest etc. This way, each crop has a guardian angel of sorts who is watching over it, and learning all about it. But we all will help with anything that needs to be done, whether or not it is for our own adoptees.
So far, we have planted lettuce, peas, spinach and potatoes (exciting new crop this year!) - all things that can be planted while still cool. But now that our frost date will soon be behind us, we'll be planting much more in the next few weeks. We've been doing a lot of weeding to get each bed ready to plant, because those weeds sure love that drip irrigation just as much as the crops do!
The Field
And then there's the field...the one below the field that is just below the ditch. We planted winter rye there again last fall as a cover crop to help enrich the soil (our third cover crop). We didn't have much winter moisture here, so it didn't grow much at all until we had those few spring snows. In April we met at the field to create berms - which act as walls or dams - to prep the field for irrigation from the ditch. We've irrigated several times now and the rye is really taking off. We will be turning the rye under some time in June. After it has had about a month to decompose in the ground, we will do another soil test to see if the soil is ready to support growing some fall crops. We are getting our feet wet, so to speak, gardening in the Beet House. But the real eventual goal, is to be farming the field. And we also have our eye and projection on starting a similar program of soil nourishment and improvement in the larger fields as well.
If you are interested in participating in any way, whether meetings, working outside with us, donating (we do have numerous expenses), helping with our ashram Farmers' Markets, please know that your energy, time, thoughts, prayers and donations are most welcome. We work or meet most Saturday mornings and Monday evenings. We have a wonderful group and would love to include you. Contact me, Ravi Har Kaur, at 753-4847, if you're interested in any way.
Blessings and Bounty to all of you from the Community Garden Group!
To read more about our humble beginnings, go to our archives >
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