A Gardener's Retreat

The Community Gardens had their first workday on April 26 to start putting up the deer fence.  About six people were on hand to do the actual work of digging the holes and putting up the fence posts.  By noon, all the fence posts were up and ready for the final task of attaching the mesh fencing.  At our next workday on April 30, we’ll be finishing the deer fence.  Tall people are encouraged to attend for the height-sensitive work of stapling the fencing to the polls.  

Nancy brought lots of seedlings and others brought seedlings and seeds.  There were a variety of vegetables and flowers to sample.

Nancy also spent part of the workday cultivating the center plot (one of the garden common areas) and planting out strawberry plants.  We’ll all enjoy nibbling on those, once they start to bear fruit.

In other good news, Joe and Carol loaned the garden their push mower.  Dora mowed the perimeter of the garden and Chris mowed pathways. A permanent mower for the garden is still on the list.

 

We stopped by the garden today to see how the workday was going and to check on our sprouts.  Not surprisingly, there were more than last time.  The first of the peas we planted — all of them snap peas — have finally come up.  They’re barely above ground but on their way.  

The spicy asian greens we planted have come up as well, but none of the lettuce.  What has me scratching my head is the sorrel.  The sorrel we planted is just starting to come up — tiny seedlings right where we planted them.  But a few feet away, uphill from the patch I planted, is a fully formed clump of — you guessed it, sorrel.  I did not plant sorrel there (in the middle of a dead kale plant).  And it’s much bigger than the sorrel I did plant.  Moreover, I have never planted sorrel before.  But I tasted it and it’s sorrel all right.  Now where did it come from?  

For the curious, here it is:

 

Just a reminder that we have two scheduled Work Days coming up.   Sunday April 26, from !0 am to 1 pm We’ll be doing the Seed and Seedling Exchange so bring your seeds and extra containers.   Thursday April 30 from 4 to 7 pm   Since we’re going to be putting up the fence on these two workdays, please bring the following items if you have them: post hole digger, staple guns, shovels, rakes, step ladders. See you at the garden!

We have lift off in the radish and carrot bed.  Radishes have sprouted right down the line, including those planted from last year’s seeds.  We moved the straw away to give them more air and light but they look good.

Here’s a picture of our first sprout.  I think we’ll call him Elmer.

Just wanted to alert everyone that as of Sunday, April 19, the manure and hay had been delivered. Thanks to Dean Hamilton for delivering for us.

Community gardeners are free to use what they need but there is a charge of $2 per bucket of manure and $3 per bale of hay.  Make sure you pay Dora for what you use.

Sorry, no pics this time but you can probably imagine what hay and manure look like.

Addendum: We were just there (April 23) and here’s what our manure looks like.  ;)

We’re planting early this year.  Anything that doesn’t make it, we can replant.  Today was warm with relatively light breezes so we headed out to the garden to plant some seeds.  

Chris had come into some chicken wire so he made us a fence for our peas.  We planted Sugar Ann and Sugar Daddy snap peas and another variety of regular peas.  Actually, the Sugar Ann went in Saturday.  So, based on the seed packet’s instructions, we should have pea seedlings by the 28th of this month.  I’m paying attention because some of the seeds we planted are a year old or more so if they don’t come up I want to replant fast.

I also planted interspersed rows of carrots and radishes, more than ever before but we’ve always had good luck with them and there never seem to be enough.  I still have two rows of carrots to plant but so far we have Easter Egg and Petit Dejeuner radishes and Royal Chantenay and Scarlet Nantes carrots in the ground.

The other exciting planting was sorrel which I’ve never grown before.   I planted a small bed of it just to see what would happen.  Hopefully, I’ll get enough for the French classic Sorrel Soup, which I’ve wanted to make for years.

After all our seeds were planted, we trudged down to the stream down the hill and filled some buckets to water.  It’s dry for the first inch or so but nice and moist below.  Hopefully we can keep everything watered until Sunday when (cross your fingers) we get rain.  I’m looking forward to that straw shipment too, so we can start to mulch.

Next on the planting list is lettuce which we’re going to schedule around the weather forecast.  I’d like it to be a bit wetter before we try to get that going.  In the meantime, with luck we should have radish seedlings within the week!  That’s always exciting.

In trying to figure out ways to enrich and add humus to our sandy community garden soil, I realized that without a compost source, some creativity was going to be necessary. Around the same time, I was given a copy of The Permaculture Way by Graham Bell, which inspired me with a wide array of fertilizing options.

For starters, fertilizer is more than just a chemical emulsion that you apply. Chemical fertilizer may provide a cheap shot of “nutrition” for your plants but it won’t do anything for your soil, except possibly kill it. Real fertilizing is more about the soil itself — creating healhty, living soil full of microorganisms and organic matter. You can’t get that out of a bottle, and that’s why learning about soil amendment and natural plant food is so important. In The Permaculture Way, Graham Bell throws out a variety of ideas, most of them cheap and easy to make use of.

Read the rest of this entry »

Because my calendar said that this weekend was good for planting — and because the weather, time, and timing were also right — we went over to the garden to work on our plot.  There wasn’t too much to do.  We turned over the dirt and pulled out a bunch of grass roots that were snaking their way through the soil.  Luckily they were really easy to pull out after the rain.

Good news!  We have worms, big fat juicy worms.  This is our third year in this plot and every year we do what we can to amend the soil  Last year it was leaf mould.  Apparently our efforts are starting to pay off.  I’m going to bring more leaf compost tomorrow — that’s about the only compost our backyard will produce.

In the “what’s growing now” category, we are pleased that despite the munchings of whatever allium-loving critter, our four clumps of perennial chives are growing big and strong.  The catnip is doing well too, and I transplanted one to the common perennial garden so eventually, there will be some for everyone to enjoy (if anyone is looking for catnip in the meantime, ask us).  

It’s never a Spring day at the garden if I don’t plant something, so today I planted snap peas.  I hope to get a few meals out of them this year — I’ve never had much luck with peas of any kind so this year I’m confining my efforts to this one variety and we’ll see how we do.

Tomorrow, we’ll be back to plant lettuce (butter crunch, romaine), radishes, carrots, and sorrel, which I found at Agway today and had to buy because I’ve always wanted to try it.  (The French make a sorrel soup they swear by but where does one find sorrel in America? I now have the answer — you grow it yourself.)

About sixteen community gardeners met at the Coop Meeting Room on Main Street to make plans for the coming season.  A lot of progress was made.

Work Days and the Fence

Two work days have been scheduled to put up the deer fence.  This is the same lightweight fencing we used the first two years.  The workdays are:

Sunday, April 26 from 10 AM to 1 PM

Thursday, Aprill 30 from 4 to 7 PM

Gardeners are encouraged to stop by and help out on either day, even if you can’t make the full three hours.

Seed and Seedling Exchange

We’ll be doing the Seed and Seedling Exchange on the workdays scheduled above. If you have seeds or seedlings to trade, bring them along when you come.

Naming The Garden

The final list of names is as follows:

• Upper Dummerston Road Community Garden
• Horse and Goose Community Garden
• B-town Gardens
• Green Winds Gardens
• Retreat Meadows Community Gardens
• Brattleboro Community Garden at Upper Dummerston Road

We’ll be voting on a name at the next meeting.

The Woodchuck

Gardening Coordinator Dora Bouboulis said that we had a woodchuck in the garden last year and that it was a problem.  She said that from her research, the only way to keep a woodchuck out of a garden is by putting in either an electric fence or a special fence that’s deeply dug and doubled.

A discussion ensued.  Most gardeners seemed in favor of tryiing some less onerous and expensive methods before resorting to woodchuck-proof fencing.  Some ideas generated at the meeting include:

• See if the woodchuck is still there — if not, no problem.  Dora said that the woodchuck burrows from last year looked abandoned, which we took as a good sign.
• Try spiritual protection and animal communication to convince the woodchuck not to eat all our green beans.
• Hope that the deer fence provides some deterrence.
• Walk our dogs around the perimeter (on leashes) as dog urine is said to repel rodents.
• Get Havaheart traps to trap and remove the offending woodchuck(s)
• Try woodchuck repellent, available at our local hardware store
• If all else fails, and the woodchuck is still a problem, form a subcommittee to discuss more further anti-woodchuck efforts.

As noted, the woodchuck hasn’t been seen yet this year, so he or she may have moved on.  Dora also said that she had seen animal tracks in the area from some of the woodchuck’s natural predators, which could bode well for the garden (and ill for the woodchuck).

Things We Need And Plans To Get Them

We figured out how to get some of the things we need:

• Hay from Dean Hamilton for $200; available to gardeners at $2/bale
• Manure from Dean Hamilton for $200; available to gardeners at $2/bucket
• A lawn mower to be purchased by the garden

Still needed:

• Someone to refurbish the garden cart or a new garden cart

That’s it for this week’s meeting notes. Stay tuned for more as we start to prep the garden.

The next garden meeting will be held April 8, 2009 at 7 pm at the Coop’s Main Street Office.

Directions to Co-op Main Street Office: Go in the door for the Fireworks Restaurant on Main St, down the hall and to the right. The Office is down a level.

Agenda:

• applications, fees and plot assignments
• the woodchuck, who ate a lot of green beans last year
• the fence, what kind and when to erect it
• scheduling work days, which Dora would like to schedule twice a month
• naming the garden
• hay and manure
• seed exchange
• fundraiser ideas

See you all at the meeting!