Composting by Dowding

 Dear Garden lovers,

The new video series by Charles Dowding is very current, and is fascinating to follow. Here's a collection of his work on composting for the vegetable garden. Fabulous information.

Charles Dowding on Composting:

1.  4 Compost heaps in 3 bays ready in 6 months: (video)

2.  Composting from start to finish: (video)

And two more of interest:

3. Making compost in different sizes: (video)

4. Removing the lower leaves of plants to keep ground clear of slugs (video) and to increase air circulation around plant in humid climates with alot of rain.

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At the DIGS garden we are re-arranging the composting set up behind the back fence to fit everything in among the blackberry. Even the blackberry plants themselves are becoming compost, through being mowed mechanically into shredded blackberry cane each week.

The frosty cold nights dipping below zero have led to a bit of frozen lettuce under the Remay floating-row-cover cloth. One hoop had collapsed and the touching of the cloth on plants caused leaf loss through freezing. We'll have to get the plastic out to cover them.

Enjoy the Dowding info.

Best, Jen

Winners of Our Garlic Raffles

 

Dear Garlic and Garden lovers,

Two more delicious garlic braids have been won. Here's all the news:

Update: Round two of the raffle was held at the Beacon House on December 3rd 2023. Congratulations To Sara G. and Valerie T. who were the winners of this delicious (and beautiful) organic garlic grown at DIGS this year. For those who didn't win, the new crop is in the ground for next year's raffle.

Previously:

Round one of the community garden’s garlic braid draws was held today (Saturday) at the 10am garden meet-up. Winners of the first two braids were Jim K. of Cpt. Morg. and Tom B. (friend from Ontario to the Harris's we hear).  

Both braids are made from the garden’s prized Red Russian stock garlic. This variety of garlic is now the world’s most popular, a purple stripe cherished by gourmets for its succulence and long-lasting traits. 

 Tickets for the next draw — for a similar pair of Red-Russian braids — will be available in early November with the draw for those to be held Sunday, Dec. 3 at the Christmas craft sale at Beacon House. Ticket prices remain the same — $2 each or three for $5. Notice of ticket availability will be posted soon. Proceeds go to support the Community Garden!

From Mike G. of DIGS.

September interest

 A few topics this month to figure out:

1. We needed to figure out our crop rotation plans for the spring to come, so that we know which beds are free for overwintering crops.

Saturday morning we planted two kinds of spinach; one very fast one called Yukon that is a 45 day harvest timeline, and the old Savoy (crinkly kind) variety called Bloomsdale, which is 50 days to harvest. Both spinach varieties will stay pretty stunted as the light fades in the late fall, then burst back to life in early March. They may or may not get poly-tunnels in December-February as the consensus was, from last year, that spinach does fine here in this microclimate/zone without needing physical protection from winter weather.

But we will need to cover the lettuce (Barilla) which is also ready to transplant; perhaps by next week. We will need re-bar supports purchased as 12" pegs, and plastic piping to be used as the frame. Alternatively, this cattle fencing idea (video) is also good. You cover lettuce with a hoop frame and poly when temperatures are expected to drop to 4 degrees Celsius.

See diagram below. Currently edible crops are in medium-green text.

click on the jpg above to enlarge.

2. Winter Veg!! This farmer is using the same Eliot Coleman method as we have been researching at DIGS (double covered crops for warmth). This farmer is in Kentucky in Zone 6b and to compare, we're much warmer in Zone 8 here ourselves, which is a minimum temperature that falls within the -12 to -7 degrees Celsius range in winter. This video quickly goes through food to eat during winter harvests:

Easy winter crops to grow for eating with no heat required (video)

3. Also: Why didn't the beets thrive in Bed 1 this past (hot/dry) summer? About 50% were undersized and fibrous. Most folk agree that since it was SO hot and dry and the soil was very parched, that the beets were likely needing shading and moisture. Here's a good video that gives the gist of this crop's life cycle demands (video):

We do have beetgreens being grown in bed 17 (left side front of DIGS) that are being grown just for greens, by the way, if anybody needs a few beetgreens (use like spinach.) Just to mention it. We could be planting beets to overwinter if we had some seed, that's something to plan ahead for maybe.

4. The cucumber frame in bed 9 is going to wait til next June when cucumbers will be planted in that bed again. It was complicated to set up. But it looks a little forlorn, and may not withstand any giant snow storms, so I went hunting for good frames for cucumbers online and found this interesting A-frame made of agricultural fencing (video is set to begin at a good spot for short viewing time):

As mentioned above, you can also use these panels of cattle fencing to make strong hoops to hold netting, row cover cloth or poly in the winter. (video)

5. Finally harvestable leaf lettuce is available to Saturday work party participants all over the garden, if you take the outer leaves from mature heads and leave the center of the lettuce to grow on. There is also pak choi in bed 17 that you can take outer leaves with a long stem on each one for stir fry. Enjoy!

Jen

Pac Choi try out

 Dear Gardeners,

 Just with the idea of trying it out we have just planted some Pac Choi, in small amounts, to learn more about it as a possible vegetable for us to grow at DIGS. The West Coast Seed Planning Guide says that Pac Choi can be started from seed and then covered over winter all through this month. I checked out a few informative videos and will see if "cut and come again" is a good method for us this winter. Here are the videos I found most helpful.

Pak choi 

Bok choi and pak choi; how to grow (video)

How to utilize "Cut and come again" to get three heads from one (video):

The first video also covers how to avoid bolting in this sensitive-to-heat plant.

Enjoy watching them grow in square bed 17a with more to come, as they are sprouting on the baby lettuce table.

Best, Jen

Garlic Braid How-To Demo

 Dear Gardeners,

Mike G. will be giving a "How to make Garlic Braids" demonstration at the DIGS garden Labour Day weekend, on Saturday Sept. 2nd at 10:30 am. It would be a quick, 15-minute demo covering cleaning the garlic bulbs for tying, and then wrapping them with twine into a fantastic hanger.  Just as last year, the magnificent braids (there are four this year) that Mike and Andria made will be raffled off so you can win one!

We will be holding two separate garlic braid draws this year, doubling your chances to win with two braids in each draw. The garlic is the Community Garden’s finest — jumbo-sized European Purple Stripe, which will last all winter when hung in your kitchen. Each braid has 16 bulbs. 

Ticket prices are the same as last year — $2 for one raffle ticket, or three tickets for $5.

Garlic Braid Raffle Tickets will be available every Saturday morning at the Community Garden (between 10 and 11:30 A.M.), at the DIGS  Fall Fair on Sept. 9 at Beacon House, or by contacting Veronica Z. or Mike G.

 Draws to be held Thanksgiving Weekend, Saturday, Oct. 7, and for Christmas, during the Art Walk at Beacon House Dec. 3. The funds raised go toward DIGS garden.

Zucchini Parmesan Crisps Recipe

 Zucchini Parmesan Crisps Recipe

What to do with all your zucchini? Well, this recipe looks absolutely perfect! (video)

Ingredients

1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

3 tbsps or more of olive oil

3 medium zucchini

Mix with your hands 1/4 inch sliced zucchini in a large bowl with salt, pepper, garlic powder and oil.

Oil a baking tray. Dip each piece of zucchini in a mixture of grated parmesan and panko. Press to adhere.

Bake at 450 for 18-20 minutes until crunchy and brown.

Greenhouses or poly-tunnels

 The fabulous Charles Dowding market gardening videos that we've been watching have terrific greenhouse  or poly-tunnel specific information that will be useful for us making the most expedient use of our year round cool greenhouse.

Right now in late July our poly-tunnel at DIGS has cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes (sometimes melon and eggplant too.) 

Here's a video showing how crops are changed over in May/June to tomato/cuke/melon/basil and every heat-loving plant that prefers protection from the elements: video.

And here is specific information about tomatoes in the poly-tunnel: video.

At the end of the hot season, the poly-tunnel is often used as a holding area for plants that will grow slowly over the winter, but be harvestably in small amounts: video.

Here's Dowding's poly-tunnel in December where they harvest the outer leaves of salad in winter, as salad is the most in demand food they grow. This video will start right at that part of the entire tour video: video set to start at winter salad.

And more information on salad in the winter (Nov-Feb) from an unheated greenhouse: video.

Another way to grow salad indoors is on trays set on tables (staging.): video.

And here is a longer comparison of greenhouses to polytunnels: video.

Guide to sowing seeds in the greenhouse: video.

Germinating seeds in a greenhouse hotbed: video.

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And finally, Charles Dowding has had a seeding tray manufactured (in UK and USA) that is unbreakable and lasts for over 15 years, while reducing soil required.

See Dowding's higher quality seed modules: video.

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Charles Dowding Videos

 A new market gardening expert has uploaded tons of educational videos that are so helpful. Thanks to Jane T. and Jane F. for forwarding this incredibly valuable information. And please help yourself to the free Charles Dowding's "how to grow" videos. Dowding is a lifelong farmer and market gardener and has dedicated himself to making videos of each season of his garden.

Here is a very quick tour of his garden and greenhouse/polytunnel: quick tour video. 

And here is a deliciously LONGER tour: video. (20 min.)

And if you're curious about the validity of the "No Dig" method (putting compost on top of a bed once a year and leaving the bed undisturbed), Dowding has run a ten year trial side by side of two identical beds to prove that "no dig" produces more food and stronger plants: video of No-Dig vs. Dig over ten years.

And to start off with one or two focus areas, perhaps some of the most useful topics for us at a Community Garden would be: 

Grow more food in less space!

Intensive Summer planting: video.

High Yields in Small Spaces: video.

Clearing one crop to plant another quick and easy: video.

Spacing plants efficiently: video.

Soil doesn't need to rest: video about non-rotation of crops.

Multi-sowing seeds in the greenhouse: video.

_____________________and of course....

Best method of composting

The "How to compost" videos are in a playlist, which is helpful too.

Most importantly:

How much compost do you need? video. and

Making compost in 3 bays: video.

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 I found while watching that we're already doing so much of what Dowding recommends already at DIGS community garden, that we're ahead of the game here.

 Please feel free to comment (comment button below). 

And more films to follow in next blogpost.

What can you plant in July?

 Dear Gardeners,

Note from future selves: If you haven't planted your carrots by mid-July, you are too late for winter carrots. Plant plant!! Just had to write that as a reminder to our carroty breatheren. Plant early, plant often and keep seed moist.  :>)

Now that we're coming into the second half of July the question is: Can any veggies still be planted from seed? The answer is YES! Here's a video to give ten bountiful crops from beets, kale and chard to a few less well known crops (video):

And here, looking ahead, are some educational videos about what to sow in the upcoming months before the sun gets too low in the sky. These are Charles Dowding videos.

What can you plant in August through October?

Winter crops sown in August-Oct: video.

Winter crops sown in September: video.

No dig, easy and speedy (Sept crops): video.

Also, if planning ahead to winter edibles, very easy-at-a-glance is Linda Gilkeson's month by month winter planting guide: 

More to follow, as we're planning our new greenhouse/polytunnel in the upcoming months! Also the garden is full of produce from garlic and rhubarb to raspberries, blueberries, lettuce zucchini and potatoes. So much going on in July!

Jen

What's up in the early June garden?

click on photo to enlarge

 Well now that the plants sale is over, the Dessert Auction is imminent, and crops are being planted like crazy in the garden, what else is going on at DIGS? How nice of you to ask!! Click on the above picture to see that we now have a new special reserved section for propagating native plants, a new cucumber trellis, and mysterious white fabric floating row covers over certain seeded crops. The white Remay cloth or row-cover-polyester is keeping out bugs that destroy carrots/turnip/radish. So after watering underneathe you want make sure it's sealed down with rocks and corner-clothes-pegs afterward so the bugs cannot enter and take up residence while the plants are young. 

click on photo to enlarge

When you first enter the front gate, if you turn to the left you'll see the tallest wooden beds 15 and 17 which are currently part of our Coleman Project (growing more veg in less space throughout the cold seasons too). 

Here we've been having good success so far featuring "Cut and Come Again" Mesclun (mixed seed packet of small sized lettuce/kale/arugula that is meant to harvest as "baby greens"), a mixture of full-sized spinach, lettuce and parsley, and transplants from Jim's garden of leeks and scallions to fill in spaces not taken up with carrot and turnip. The Little Diggers Sunday 10am program is also using Remay cloth to cover radishes, and soon, carrots in the littlediggers L-shaped bed near the center of the garden front.

click on photo to enlarge

 

Elsewhere, peas and broadbeans are almost ready to harvest, and the asparagus is finishing. Note that asparagus stems that were simply broken off above the soil-level ended up dead and withered (see photo above top left), whereas if broken/cut below ground asparagus stems stay alive.  In starch-land, the large row potatoes are flowering, and the shorter potato towers by the gate are also doing well.

Green beans have had germination problems (bush beans will likely need to be resown but that's better for succession planting if done weeks apart anyway) and the squash transplants are struggling in the cold weather. Not pictured, but a great new feature, the new raspberry cane pattern of semi-circular bending to produce three times more fruit and at a lower height has been a huge success. More photos of that to follow as the season progresses. Exciting stuff!!

Best, Jen

Fall Fair Sept.9 2023

 

Get ready; there are three months until......

DIGS Ninth Annual FALL FAIR 2023

Saturday, September 9 at Beacon House here on P. I.

Submit your entries at Beacon House on: Friday, September 8: 6-8 pm  or

Saturday, September 9: 8-9:30 am

On September 9 Saturday

10 am to noon Beacon House will first be CLOSED for judging.

Doors open at 12 noon to the public to view exhibits

12-3pm Food Available: Hot Dogs, Chips, juice/soft drink.

What you can do:

View the exhibits

Enter the Garlic Braid Raffle - 3:30pm for the Draw

Cock-a-Doodle Poo contest

Coconut Shie

Participate/Watch the Kids Races on the field below:

Egg tosses – 1) kids 2) adult

Adult Tug of War

1st Ever Electric Bike Race

Electric Wheel Barrow Race

PI Beacon Library Book Sale/Design-A-Bookmark Contest Display

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Exhibits to remain on display until 3pm.

Pick up your entries and winning ribbons between 3 to 4pm

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GENERAL RULES FOR ENTRIES

1. NO LATE ENTRIES will be accepted. See times at top.

2. Adults...one dollar PER entry. NO entry fee for children, even if entered in an adult category. Enter as many items as you wish.

3. Two age categories for children and teens: Primary 7 years and under ; Junior 8 to 14 years

Children and teens may enter in their age category OR they may choose to challenge the adults in their categories

4. Entries must be MADE or GROWN or BAKED by the entrant within the last 12 months.

5. There are 5 categories and several classes within each category. Ribbons for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places will be awarded for each class within a category.

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CATEGORIES (please read instructions carefully)

VISUAL ARTS

1. Painting

2. Sketch in black and whitemounted on a black mat (no frame or glass) (black mat supplied if required)

3. Photograph mounted on a black mat (no frame or glass)

4. Natural Beach Art

5. Carving/Sculpture/Wood Working

5. Card Making using photographs

HORTICULTURE

“BEST” means best representation of species

1. Biggest Squash

2. Best Root Vegetable

3. Biggest Zucchini by Weight

4. Biggest Onion by weight (roots removed, tops folded over with elastic)

5. Largest Garlic Bulb by weight (roots removed, top trimmed to 1”)

6. Biggest Tomato by weight

7. Best Potted Herbs

8. Flower arrangement of any variety

BAKING/PRESERVES

1. Pie, any variety, topped (crust, crumble etc.)

2. Muffins (4 of one variety)

3. Yeast Breads or Buns...white, brown, whole grain, sourdough

4. Coffee cake or Loaf cake

5. Cookies, six of uniform size, same variety

6. Cake, any layer cake with icing or frosting

7. Fruit Crisp

8. Homemade Candy, Fudge, Peanut Brittle

9. Kombucha (fermented tea in clear glass container)

NOTE: The following must be in containers with standard 2 part lids, hot water sealed and labelled with the date.

10. Jam, Jelly, Marmalade

11. Pickles, Chutney, Relishes, Salsa

12. Fruit preserves

HOME ARTS AND CRAFTS

1. Knitted or Crocheted item

2. Ceramics, pottery

3. Sewn item

4. Felting

5. Spinning

6. Weaving

7. Dyeing

8. Needle Work

9. Quilting

10. Rug Hooking

11. Card making – crafted or drawn

CHILDREN'S CATAGORIES– Primary (7 and under)Junior (8 to 14)

1. Visual Arts (painting, sketch- mounted on black mat, beach art, photograph – mounted on black mat)

2. Best dressed or decorated veggie or fruit

3. Baking

4. Fabric or Wool craft

5. Ceramics – pottery or woodworking

6. Lego structure

7. Play dough structure

8. Biggest Maple Leaf

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At the end of the day, PLEASE PICK UP YOUR ENTRIES and take them home afterwards,  between 3 to 4pm. Thankyou!!