April early seedings

 Dear Garden lovers, 

Today we planted radish, turnip and mixed lettuce. Last week we planted early potato, broadbean, pea, snowpea, and there are new baby transplants of lettuce and spinach (seeded in February). (Update: For April 6th see below and holy cow, the snowpeas are up!!). See this garden map to see where it was planted so you can watch for it to come up. Such a thrill!

click on map to enlarge it.

Items in gray text on the map are future-crop transplants.

Bed 1 - Chard, (seeded) Shelling Peas, (sprouted!)Broadbean

Bed 2 - Early Potato

Bed 6 - transplanting Lettuce shortly (some will go among spinach)

Bed 7 - Bloomsdale/Yukon overwintered Spinach plus additional February seeded Spinach

Bed 14a - Pac Choi (transplanted April 6th)

Bed 15b - Carrot (seeded April 6th) - Mokum F1 hybrid

Bed 17a - Turnip (seeded April 2nd) - Hakurei

Bed 17c - potted Parris Island Cos lettuce joins the parsley (potted April 6th)

Bed 21 - Radish (seeded April 2nd & April 6th)

Bed 21 - mixed Lettuce (Mesclun) (seeded April 2nd)

And for spring personnel: We now have a Radish Empress, a Snowpea Majesty, and a Lettuce Queen. Could you be the next Prince of Chard, Pontiff of Parsnip or Chancellor of Carrots? Come down on Saturday mornings at 10 am to receive your crown (and seed packet)!! We think crops do better if there is one overseer for each. Expertise in each specialty is a great thing!! See you on Saturday!  Jen

Newcomers may also like to see:

  How Our Garden Works & Garden Allotment Guidelines

April 6th update see this diagram below:

click on map to enlarge it.

April 6th: carrots, pac choi and more radish were planted as shown above. 

Question of the Day: What is our gardening Zone here on the island?

 Every micro-climate is different due to elevation (if you're on a mountain in can be colder; when you're down at sea level it is warmer), but like Vancouver, which can range from Zone 8-9, our area is listed as an 8b.

You can look up all of B.C.'s Zones for gardening here.

Question of the Week: What is our compost made out of at DIGS?

A: We layer raked leaves (mostly maple) and seaweed in a 9:1 ratio. They are layered together in a rectangular bin made of old pallets. The leaves break down faster if they are lawn-mown but having switched to a new electric mower (quieter/easier) we no longer have the rip-snorting power to mow leaves as we used to. So we're using a "Rot-It" powder to break down the pile faster. It's working well so far.