What's up? Feb 20th

Dear Gardeners,
News from today's gardening: Feb. 20th
When we arrived for a look around this Saturday morning, the garden was still in shade and covered with frost. Have a look!
It was all melted an hour later, but what an amazingly warm day in the sunshine it soon turned into. (click on collage, and then use back button).



There is spicy mesclun coming up in our cool greenhouse, and we switched to "zippy" mesclun (less cold-tolerant) which was planted today. We're keeping a record notebook of the dates we plant, roughly every two weeks, in order to know in future years which mesclun does best in which months of the year.

I learned a bit about "damping off" that can kill off tiny seedlings, and how to try and prevent it by filling the seeding flats right to the top, so as not to create too much of a damp micro-environment right on the soil surface. The sterile mixture will sink after planting, so it's alright to fill it right up to level with the sides to start. Interesting stuff.



Some lovely DIGS volunteers dug under the last of the cover-crop of winter rye (thanks! that looked like big shovel work!) and others spread hay over the slightly muddy well-trod areas.
Now it looks ready for large draught-horses to come through the gates. Most magical!

We also cleaned up around the compost area, then made some coffee and had a good laugh about how we could sell little bags of all the great looking compost we have, with all the layers made up with different islanders good compost materials (chips from x, grass clippings from y--what an ingredients label THAT would be---it's a real melange of good will---plus it's full of worms!)

So everything's looking ship-shape and lovely, even if only kale, parsley, corn-salad, and a few cabbage and garlic are up and feisty. The raspberries are budding, and the baby strawberry plants have rooted. Optmism and fresh air abound! We even talked about a bower of pear trees we'd like to try. And fruit cages! We dreamed openly about fruit-cages!



Ah...such a good mood this sunshine brings!

Tomorrow we'll welcome our AGM guest speaker at 10:30 am at our garden, maybe with a thermos of coffee. The AGM starts at 1 pm, and we're looking our best.

Things we yakked about today over coffee with canned milk:

Raspberry netting structure:
We're trying to figure out a good inexpensive raspberry netting structure, and are looking into aluminum conduit that will create a frame for the bird-netting. Jim's clipping mechanism (bull clips put to a new use) seems feasible. A little more research, and then we should get to building it over bed 11.

New tools:
We're going to be purchasing some new strong tools and wheelbarrow and other gardening acessories (broom, rake, pitch fork etc.) so everyone's input on a tools list would be great.


First seedings:
Right now is the time for starting cool vegetables from seed like spinach, lettuce and greens. It will also be time soon to seed onions, peppers, tomatoes and other heat lovers to be started over heat (at Jim's place, and later moved to our garden.)A seeding timetable for our area is here.

Leeks and onions - how many?
We also need to think about onion beds and leek beds, and which they will be and whether we need more spaces devoted to these plants.
So I put a planning map up on the bulletin board, so everyone can see what the plan is so far, and updates to that plan can be posted as they arise.

Big day tomorrow!
So do enjoy the AGM tomorrow, the slide show, the cookies and the talk on "The Secret Life of Soil". The meeting and talk are at Beacon House (1:45 pm for the talk.)

Thanks to everyone for all you do for our garden. I just love it!! Best, Jen