Apple Trees and Broccoli

Hello everyone,

I was trying to give all the apple trees a deep watering today. So far this year they haven't had one and I wanted to makes sure they got at least one to get them through July and August. There's a lot of apples formed so if they don't get knocked off by hail, we should have a bumper crop this year.

The largest apple tree suffered some damage - probably a weedwhacker that got too close. The bark is scratched off in some places. It's not enough to kill the tree but I'll put some snow fencing around the bottom of the trunk to prevent future damage.

We have broccoli over at the Leisure Centre. I first saw it last Friday on the corner of the fenced in plot. It's a small head - more like a floret but it's there! Yay! I'm not sure what to do with it. I can't see myself harvesting it and taking it over to the Drop-In Centre as a donation. Maybe I'll just take a picture and then let it go to flower so everyone can see what broccoli blossoms look like. It could even turn into a seed saving exercise later in the year. At the very least we know if you plant broccoli seedlings in May, you could harvest at the end of June.

I've just received this announcement from Gael of the Community Garden Resource Network. (See below) Can anyone go over there to pick up some perennials? We could use some for the flower/herb bed and a few more to go in the bed behind the dumpster and maybe in front of the horse radish as well.

Alma, you'd mentioned you knew someone who had perennials he wanted to donate. Joan or Lorna, can either one of you help pick them up? I can check with our volunteer, Geoff, to see if he might be willing to do it as well. He's only got a car so I don't know how much can fit in there though. Ron's brother takes the truck to work so I wouldn't have much luck trying to get the truck on weekdays.

Hi Community Garden Leaders,

Free flowering perennials! A Calgary Horticultural Society member has generously donated perennials to beautify your community garden. They are available right now on the west side of the Calgary Horticultural Society office at 208 – 50th Avenue SW

(The office is the little blue house behind Chinook Hobby Shop which is on the corner of Macleod Trail and 50th Avenue SW. The Society’s office has a large parking lot in front of it but you can drive a vehicle in the alley right beside the west side of the office to the new community garden donation pickup area. (There’s be a sign soon!)

The perennials are labeled and in bags for transporting. They include:

Hyssop, Shasta Daisy, Blue & White Monkshood, Silene, Leopard’s Bane, Veronica Prostratata Blue, Penstemon Hirsuite, Fleabane Pink Jewel, Lynchris Viscaria, Lungwort, Dusty Salmon Maltese Cross, Hot Pink Feranium Macrorrhizome and more!

To confirm with everyone, the empty plot no. 6 (the one infested with raspberries) will be for the youth volunteers who are coming. They will plant fast growing vegetables like salad greens. No. 14 can also be for the youth to plant if that's ok with everyone. No. 4 appears to be empty but it could belong to someone. We could use that bed as a nursery bed where we can start seeds and stash perennials. The Parent-Link plot (in the flower bed right beside the garden shed) will be empty at the end of the season and perennials can be moved into it then.

Maeve, please check to make sure plots no. 4 & 14 are indeed empty. Can the rest of you can get back to me on whether you approve of those empty plots being used by the youth and for a nursery plots.

I'm going to contact Gael from the Resource Network (as above) and let her know we're building more plots and to ask her to get the word out that we're taking names for a list of people who would like to rent a plot next year.

Alex

Calgary Attendance

Hi all,

The Calgary Attendance crew will be here on Thursday. I ran into Jim, the church's new maintenance guy, last week and he told me the riding mower is broken and so is the push mower. Neither one will be repaired by Thursday and some of the grass is getting long so I'm going to ask the crew to bring their mowers and weed whackers and help Jim trim the grass in the morning. Jim said he should be able to come out to help direct the guys on where to trim, etc.

After they are done the grass, I want to get them putting in the edging for the raspberry bed so we can get that wood out of the shed. And who knows, we may complete that keyhole garden they got a start on a couple of weeks ago. Plus there's always weeding. :o)

If any of you can come out, it'll be nice to see you.

Alex

The fastest turn around time ever!

Hello everyone!

Great news! The grant application I submitted yesterday to the City's FAN Action Plan was approved today. Yay! We have $1,000 to go towards purchasing 20 self-watering pots for the incoming youth volunteers (Y-Map and CYFC) to grow vegetables in at the Leisure Centre. The grant is funded by ConocoPhillips and it's a partnership with the City to support communities in carrying out projects that will reduce the city's ecological footprint.

I've alerted Devynne to look out for the cheque. As we don't yet have our bank account, the cheque will be made out to the church - much like our previous grants. We should have the funds in the next couple of weeks. I've left a message with greengate to look into ordering in the pots.

Alex

Wed. June 24 Ron Berezan, urban farmer extraordinaire in Calgary!

Hi CGRN Core Committee,
The Unitarian Church of Calgary is hosting the well-known Edmonton urban
farmer and permaculturalis, Ron Berezan, on Wed. June 24 from 7 to 9 pm at
the Unitarian Church (16th Avenue just west of Centre Street SW.) There is
no charge!

Thought you might like to know. I will take time tonight to get the word
out to community gardeners.

Gael
CGRN

Mischief in the garden

Hello everyone,

I saw my mom at the garden late this evening and she said there may have been some kids up to mischief earlier. She didn't see them, but she found toy guns scattered over by the pile of soil and the orchard. She said the watering can was smeared with dirt and she had to clean it out.

I was dropping off some flowers and noticed some wood and assorted junk on the wood pile. They had also piled wet mud on a piece of the black composter and it looks like mud was thrown on the church windows and wall. There were toy guns and a plastic knife scattered around the currants and beside the shed. They looked surprisingly real. What ever happened to the days when water guns were bright plastic and looked like toys instead of real weapons? I gathered up the ones I could see and tossed them into the dumpster. Strange that the kids didn't take their toys with them.

I didn't have time to do any clean-up but I should be there tomorrow and I'll tidy up then. greengate had a 25% off sale on Saturday so I picked up a new watering can to replace the one that was full of holes. I also got two more of those keys to turn on the water. I'll bring those tomorrow as well.

New key and Fence update

Ron, the wonderful surveyor guy, donated a new key to us to turn on the water. Yay!!!! It's in the customary place - right shelf as you walk in the door of the shed. He even made a snazzy keychain for it.

He said he got it at Home Depot in the plumbing department. I took a picture and will be heading over there tomorrow to pick up a couple more. I'll make sure there's one kept inside the church for emergencies.

I ran into Margo at the church and she still has not heard from Carlos so we're not sure if Saturday's a go for the fence. I guess we're on standby. Ron has surveyed and marked the property line. I'll let you all know as soon as I hear from Margo what's going on.

Alex

Fence update and call for help

I got an email from Margo that Carlos and his crew could start on the fence this weekend. She'll get more details after she hears back from Carlos. We are supposed to supply them with lunch. I don't yet know if they're just putting in the posts or if they will be there all day. With this short a notice, we'll probably have to go with take-out - Spanish or pizza as Margo suggested.

Ron will be marking the property line on Friday.

I have called Alberta One-Call to come and mark the utilities this Friday. I will find out after 4:00pm today when exactly they'll be there? Can some be there to meet them? I will try my best to be there, but I have a presentation at the library at the Leisure Centre from 12:30 to 2:30pm. I'll get back to you all when I know the exact time.

I have to be at an ecofair all the way in Arbour Lake on Saturday all afternoon so I can only be there during the morning. When I hear from Margo with more details, perhaps we can email the membership and get people to come out and help serve lunch or help out if Carlos needs it.

Alex

Report from Joan

Jack and I were at the garden yesterday, he fixed the composter as well as it can be fixed and I pruned grapes-- I need to complete the grapes ( the larger plant was badly damaged with winter kill, don't think the rest are as bad--good news is there will be a fair number of grapes left on the live vines).

Next Board Meeting and Update on future plans

Hello everyone,

I believe Lorna will be back on the 23rd so can we all check our schedules and see when we're free to meet from June 24-29? I would like to meet before the church board meeting on June 30th as it will be the last time they meet until they resume in September. I will be attending because I need them to allocate a drop-off site for mulch that will be coming in July. As the raspberry patch now extends all the way along the back, I also plan to ask them to give us a better definition of what land is specifically allocated for the community garden. This is important to know since we'll be building new plots and I want to be sure the church is ok with them going where they're going.

In case I have forgotten to tell everyone, Home Depot has been successful in obtaining permission from head office to donate the lumber for the new plots. They're working on rounding up volunteers from their stores to help us build them some time at the second half of July. They are also looking into whether they can get us some soil donated as well.

I've ordered up 24 cubic yards of mulch from the City. They will be doing a drop-off some time in July. This will be enough mulch to top up all our flower beds and the raspberry bed. This is high quality mulch for beds so it's not for in-between plots. If we have left overs, it would be worth our while to stash it in the back corner and use it to mulch our beds for winter. Mulching helps keep the soil in good condition and keeps the weeds from getting an early start in spring. It also saves you from having to dig up the bed. It keeps the soil nice and moist and loose so when you're ready to plant, you just rake aside the mulch and plant without digging.

I mailed off the letter today that Jeanette (church board chairperson) signed that gives us permission to use McClure in our society's name. Hopefully that will be the last hurdle and we'll be incorporated soon. Next on the list after we get our incorporation documents is to set up our bank accounts and to meet with the Parks Foundation so we can set up a trust account so we can give out receipts for donations and be able to apply for grants on our own.

Maeve, can you please supply Joan with the following info from the membership agreements so she can create a register of members:
- names
- addresses
- email
- phone
- date they joined

Joan, you will also need to add a column for the date they ceased to be a member. Can you please forward this list to Alma when done so she can invite them to the blog?

Items up for discussion:
- who will be signing authorities for banking and Parks Foundation
- location of new plots (mark them)
- planning for fence building (we need to serve lunch and refreshments)
- logo
- what to do with excess money from Neighbour Grant if any
- events list for July (work bees, Calgary Attendance, Y-Map youth, Child and Youth Friendly Calgary, corporate volunteers, garden competition, etc.)
- any other stuff I can't remember and you want to bring up

P.S. A wrinkle in our catnip growing project. Due to a mix-up at the nursery that grew the plants for greengate, the plants we ended up with are catmint, not catnip. John at greengate has pulled a rabbit out of a hat and managed to get us some catnip seedlings to replace the catmint. At this late in the season, that's nothing short of a miracle. They are expected to come in next Monday. I'm really, really hoping they are catnip. The catmint that's been planted way at the end of the raspberry bed can stay. Nothing else seems to be able to grow there. Catmint is a beautiful perennial that's drought tolerant and attracts beneficial insects. Doesn't attract many cats, but it's a wonderful groundcover.

There is still room at the Leisure Centre to plant them, but the challenge with that space is that they have about a foot of woodchips that's excrutiatingly difficult to plant through. We will be planting them into containers and then setting the containers into the mulch.

Alex

Strawberries

Quote from Alex - "The strawberries are blooming their hearts out this year. I've never seen so many blossoms."

Let's hope for a great harvest.

Report on the Kids Garden

Wed. June 10

Kids Garden

We worked with Heart of the NE Resource Centre to help with Parent Link's Grow with Us gardening program. Four parents and five kids aged 2-4 came to the garden to plant a plot (beside the garden shed). They will be popping in once in a while to water the plot. One of the parents belongs to the Seventh Day Eventist group who comes to the church on Saturdays and he says he'll water when he comes fo church. The group will be making up a little sign for their patch and it'll be put up on one of the signs Lorna made. They will also harvest and eat the produce as it becomes ready.

This particular patch was dedicated as the melon patch, so the melons will have to be put elsewhere. The melon seeds have sprouted and will probably go in somewhere by the end of next week.

Tomatoes

greengate donated some large tomato plants and these were transplanted into the end of the raspberry bed beside the catnip. We can donate the tomatoes to the Drop-In Centre.


Thurs. June 11

Seedlings

The Calgary Attendance crew came over and planted the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings (donated by greengate) over at the Leisure Centre . When these mature, they can be donted to the Calgary Drop-In Centre.

The remaining cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower seedlings were transplanted into the raspberry bed at the back where there was room. There is kale and some broccoli seedlings left for people to take for their plots. Whatever's left will get planted by the week's end in the raspberry plot. We probably won't see much more in the way of vegetable seedling donations from greengate because brassicas are all they have left. There is a chance we might get more brassicas if they don't all sell out.

Keyhole Garden

The mini-keyhole garden got its start today when a few of the Calgary Attendance guys moved over soil from that mound of sod at the back of the hill. Most of the sod has composted down into a lovely looking enriched soil. The "basket" for the centre of the keyhole garden will be put together this weekend. The basket goes in the middle and the sod/soil will be heaped around it in a round hill. Compost and grey/rain water will go into the basket and will feed the plants' root from the inside out. By the end of next week, we hope to have the bed ready for planting.

Sod, Dirt and Rock Piles

The Attendance crew made a start of flattening the dirt pile by the back composter and using the soil to fill in holes and dips in the surrounding area.

The pile of sod has started to be taken down and the soil will be spread around the area. Some of the soil will be used to top up plot number 6 - the one dedicated for the Y-Map program youth. That particular bed needs quite a bit of soil to top it up.

If anyone wants to help themselves to the soil from the pile of sod to top up their plot, they can help themselves.

We also have a little rock pile started in the orchard. The rocks can be used for they keyhole garden.

Watering

We have one volunteer who has signed up to water over there on Tuesdays and we could use another. They were testing the sprinklers and will be doing repairs so soon the watering area will be reduced by a third. The beds that need watering include those that wrap around the library, the beds under the trees across from the library and the patch at the back of the arena.

The same volunteer who will come on Thursdays to water the raspberry patch and orchard. It might be a good idea to set up a list/schedule for volunteers who come to help water the community/charitable donation beds.

Weeding

The rhubarb patch on top of the hill and the raspberry patch were both weeded.

Village Square planting

Swiss Chard planted at Village Square. Click on picture to enlarge.