Mid-season catch up

Happy Tuesday gardeners!

We hope you are all enjoying summer! As promised this year, we are not sending out many emails, but rather keeping everyone updated on our FB page and blog (here!). However, we wanted to get everyone up to speed and make sure you all are aware of what is going on; so here is the news:

Growing:

The garden is finally taking off after a rather slow spring. There were a few glitches in the watering system- but they are all fixed now thanks especially to Trish and Matt. Please be careful when walking around the irrigation system as some connections are fragile. If you see a break please let us know ASAP. We have had more pests than usual this year, so we will be spreading diatomaceous earth around seedlings, squash and cucumbers. We will also be fertilizing the garden with an organic fish fertilizer this week which should give it all a nice big boost. We'll repeat this again in the first week of august. Remember we have garden sessions every Tuesday from 5-7pm, Saturday mornings and you can also stop by whenever it works for you.

Compost:

Yes! We have a brand new compost barrel. Please bring your kitchen scraps (just NO meat/eggs/dairy) and a moderate amount of seed-free lawn clippings to the black bin every week. Just open, dump in your scraps, and close. The sooner we get it filled the sooner we can get it composting. It will need about 100 days to compost and then we can start the cycle over again. This will be great for the garden next year and it keeps your food waste out of the landfill.

Weeding:

There are tons of weeds- like always and we encourage everyone to do their part. If all 40 members pulled a few weeds every week our garden would be spotless :). Right now we want to pay special attention to getting out all of the GOATHEADS. There is a huge patch of them near the alley way, and there are babies all over the garden. These hurt feet and paws and will puncture bike tires. Please pull every-single-one and put them in the trash. After that pull weeds wherever, remembering that the herb beds in back need weeding as do the front flower beds near the road.

Harvest:
The strawberries were a delicious first bite of spring! The lettuce and small greens are done for the season and we are moving on to lots of green beans, tops of the basil plants and greens like chard. The garlic may be ready as early as next week! And in a couple of weeks we will start having lots of tomatillos, peppers and tomatoes too! If you see little blue borage flowers at the beginning of the rows- feel free to pick a few and put them on your salads- they taste like cucumber. And remember you are always welcome to harvest herbs as needed.

Potluck:

Our first potluck of the season will be Tuesday, July 22nd after the garden session. We'll provide lemonade and water and a big table- so please bring a dish to share, a chair and your own cup/plate/utensils. Feel free to bring a friend or family member as well!

As always, we welcome your feedback and encourage you all to get more involved if you want to say, lead composting, organize social events, plant a special variety of something or become a garden leader!

See you soon,

The Garden Committee

Work session tonight. Jess is your garden leader and will be directing the following:
Weeding: Everywhere! There are giant weeds in the pathways that need to go. The dead weeds can be left in the pathways, but GOATHEADS should be thrown in trash. There are lots of goatheads popping up and we need to pay special attention to getting them all out!

Re-seeding: We will be reseeding the areas where we harvested the radishes and spinach as well as the “annual herb” area where nothing is growing (middle of bed) and the chamomile bed and we can take out the peas as well. The irrigation lines should be pulled back, and then the weeds pulled and the soil re-worked with a pitchfork. After leveling the beds back out, replace the hoses. The front bed near road should be planted in summer squash, three seeds per area a couple of feet apart. The other areas should be seeded with kale, broccoli and pok choi cabbage …and mustard greens if we have room.. Those should be seeded in two parallel lines about 8-12" apart, one on either side of the  irrigation lines. Please seed these regularly, one seed every ½ inch or so. These do NOT need to be clustered along the holes in the irrigation line. After seeding, cover the seeds, water well with watering cans, and at the end sprinkle all seeded areas with a heavy dusting of diatomaceous earth across the newly seeded beds. We have a lot more bugs than usual this year and this should help with some of them. Label all rows when done!!

Harvest: there are beans to be had, please make sure all of the ripe ones are harvested so they will keep producing. Also people can harvest cilantro and herbs as needed. Please pinch all flowering ends of the basil. And greens (arugula and chard) can be harvested as people want. Encourage people to come harvest lettuce in the early mornings as it is less bitter then.

Fertilizer: I will be buying some fish fertilizer to spray the garden. This should be done at the very end, as it kind of smells! But parts of the garden could use a little boost!