Here are some updates for today

Hello everyone,

Perennials

Lorna, were you going to go to pick up the perennial donations from the Hort. Society tomorrow? (Wed.) They can be planted in plot no. 14 beside the back composter. I can help with that if you can let me know when you're going.

Watering
The raspberry bed could use more water to help the plants get better established and there are also catmint, tomatoes and brassicas in there that could use some water. I ran into Ruth? and asked her to help water that bed when she's volunteering to water. I finally got some water onto those grapes today.

The raspberries, grapes, orchard and rhubarb patch on top of the hill get watered the least and I think we need to organize volunteers to help water those. I know there's something set up now where people come to water everyone's plots, but plots have owners who are supposed to take care of them so I think it's better if we ask volunteers to water the community beds instead. They get much less attention.

More mischief in the garden
In the afternoon I was walking in the garden with a couple of the residents of the apartment building and they told me the teenagers who live at the bottom right unit was going through the raspberry bed and breaking off canes. When I was watering them yesterday, I did notice several leafing canes that had died recently. They also ripped off some branches off a poplar and threw it in the back corner. I'm also wondering if they were the ones who snapped off one of our saskatoon bushes. Somethng to keep an eye on.

Even more worrying, when I walked to the back of the church with those two folks I noticed water was coming out of the tap at the back of the church. It wasn't a geyser, but it was a strong enough flow to have the water streaming off the tap at a good rate. I have no idea how long it's been on. The day before I used that tap to water the raspberries, but I definitely turned it off. I disconnected the hose from that tap so if it wasn't off, believe me, I would have noticed. I got the key from the shed and turned the water off.

A little while ago someone stole a watering key so this could be further mischief stemming from that. Please keep an eye on that tap, and the tap on the west side of the church when you're in the garden.

Plots

A micro-irrigation plot has been added beside The Melon Colony beside the cherry trees. It's almost finished. I'll be there on Thursday morning to add the sod around the outside to keep the soil together. The clay pot in the middle will hold water that will slowly diffuse into the surrounding soil depending on need. Fancy summer squash will be planted there (striped zucchini, cousa squash, yellow crookneck and green pattypan).

Maeve has confirmed that the empty plot no. 14 (closest to the back composter) will be used for a nursery bed and the youth volunteers can help take care of it. We'll use it for seed starting and for parking perennials for fall transplanting. I've started summer squash under plastic cloches (green zucchini, yellow patty-pan and vegetable marrow). Trudi was kind enough to lend us the use of her cloches to speed up the process. If all goes well we should have at least 20 plants to set out. A few can stay in the nursery bed, a good many can be transplanted into the keyhole garden once it's completed, and the rest can go into the self watering pots for the leisure centre. It's late in the season so the plants won't produce much before frost...just in case you were worried we'll get innundated with summer squash.

I took the cloches off the giant pumpkin plot between the two apple trees on the hill. The plants have grown quite a bit and they are bigger than the ones at the Leisure Centre where there's a warmer micro climate. All the plants were started at the same time so I think the cloches make a big difference. It's either that or my secret ingredient that I added to our pumpkin plot.

The layout of the new plots have been "penciled in". There are 12 more that will go in front of the raspberry bed but their layout is simple so I didn't bother to mark those. These position are not set in stone so we can move them around until we're happy with them. Having them marked will make it easier to see where we need to do more leveling with that pile of soil. That's something the Calgary Attendance crew can do when they are next here.

Thursday morning - around 10:00am is when I'll be trying to get some work done on the keyhole garden. At the very least I want to put in the "basket" for the compost in the middle of the plot.

Alex