Please harvest!

A note from Jean Snow:

“We finished the arugula and most of the radishes today.  We planted some more beans where the arugula was by the cucumbers.  The Purple Mizuna is soooo ready to be harvested.  So is the lettuces and the Swiss Chard.  I mentioned it to Chief Craig but if it is still there when you go by, please pick some.  There are lots of peas to harvest also. ”

The garden is full of produce…please drop by and help yourselves! Pull a weed or two at the same time 🙂

Sundays at 6pm

Hi,

First off, congrats to everyone for finishing another year of school! Here’s to sleeping in and no lunch making!

For garden maintenance we have decided to meet every  SUNDAY at 6pm, to help with the weeding, watering and thinning. Everyone is welcome. If you can make it one week and not the next, no worries, we just hope families stay involved through the summer to keep the garden! Jean Snow is willing to meet us the first Sunday, are people available to come this Sunday for training? If not, we can schedule Jean for the the following week.

The garden has also been assigned a community volunteer through the EAC. The volunteer will meet us Sundays at 6pm, so if no one shows up, then at least the garden is being tended.

There will be produce to harvest all through the summer so we need families to come by and help us eat it! Right now there is a LOT of lettuce, please come and help your self. Bring a bag and some scissors and snip away.

We also purchased rain barrel stands, so we’ll try to get them installed this week. We might cheat and fill them half way with the hose that Ms.Pelly installed out of the staff room so at least we have some water access on Sunday evenings as the school will be locked at this time.

I do have a blank sign that I finally made…just need to get it painted and then hammered in the ground….just like a seed this is a slow process to get everything done.

Also I wanted to take this opportunity to say a big thank you to Ms.Woodbury who was so supportive with the garden. I heard Ms. Woodbury made a salad with the school lettuce for the staff goodbye party! Hope it was delicious! Good luck at your new school, we’ll sure miss you at Inglis Street.

Summer watering and weeding

We hope we can keep all those who are interested involved in the garden over the summer. The plan is to have a scheduled work event one day a week throughout the summer weeks. Maybe Sunday night, 7pm? Post your comments below if that time does not work for you. We have the help of Jean Snow and her team through the month of July along with a volunteer assigned to the garden by the Ecology Action Centre through their school garden matchmaker program. We will need help with weeding, watering and thinning/eating of the lettuce! Post below if you have any other comments or suggestions. We are still working on a rain barrel solution, a parent at the school has volunteered to make a platform. Get in touch if you have any other ideas or comments. Here’s to the first day of summer!

Weedy Friday

Ms. Pelly’s grade six class was out on Friday weeding the garden. If you haven’t been by in awhile, check out the beds they are starting to look full and green.

Soil haulers needed Saturday 9am!

A soil delivery is arriving Saturday morning at 9am. We need parents and children with shovels and wheelbarrows to help transfer the soil from the pile to the boxes. If you have time before the kid run, head on over. If you have time after the kid run, head on over. We just need to fill the remaining two boxes up! If we are able to get this done over the weekend, planting will begin next week.

Garden boxes made

We are finally on the way! This Saturday everyone met up with Jean and Natalia from Lake City Farms and they led us in how to put together the garden boxes. Now we have 4 x 14′ x 30″ boxes ready to plant! We were a little short on the soil order, so more will be delivered this week if the weather stays dry (the rain can even mess up the soil!). Once we know the day of the week, we’ll need some volunteers to show up after school or work and shovel the soil into the remaining 2 boxes.

Since we had a lot people show up, a splinter group tackled the existing shrubs dotting the west side of the school grounds. We were all excited to see tulips, rose bushes and various shrubs under the overgrowth. When we went back on Sunday to finish up a woman walking her dog stopped to ask about the beds and what we were doing. She said she was really happy to see a garden since she was the one 18 years ago to plant all the tulips and shrubs in the front bed at the corner of Robie and Inglis with her Sparks group. In fact we had a lot of people stop over Saturday and Sunday and ask what was going on—we need to get on making our sign!

Seedlings will be in the garden after the Victoria Day long weekend. Each class should get a chance to plant their seedlings in the boxes.

Work Party Saturday May 14th, 12pm

Hi gardeners!

Rain (!) or shine, this Saturday, May 14th is a work party to create the Inglis Street Urban Garden! Jean Snow and her husband are starting on the boxes today (1pm at the school if anyone can make it, sorry for the short notice) but we will need LOTS MORE HELP on Saturday, putting in the lag bolts into the drilled holes, placing the boxes, shovelling soil etc. If we work quickly we could also do some work on the front flower garden beds which need some TLC attention.

Let’s all meet at 12pm at the corner of Inglis and Robie. Be prepared to get dirty! Kids are welcome to come and help. If you have the following tools, please bring them with you:

-9/16th socket and a driver

-wheel barrels

-big shovels

-gardening gloves

Jean Snow made beds for her own home this weekend, you can see her progress here. We will be planting THREE 20ft long beds. LOTS of room for planting! See Jean’s bed making progress here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150174414905770.303572.23063340769

Please pass along this blog to other families interested in the project!

Seedlings

Seedlings are making great progress in the sunny staff room!

Pumpkin seedlings from Quinn 1/2

Seedlings

Seeds have been planted!

Today the Grade 5 and Grade 6 classes planted seeds with Jean Snow from Lake City Farms. First the children worked the rich soil to create soil blocks for the seeds with Jean’s soil-block maker—a medium sized one like this one make four blocks at once. The classes planted zucchini, ground cherries, squash and gooseberries.

Working the soil

Soil blocks

Jean Snow from Lake City Farms

Seeds planted by Grade 5 class

Site of the garden

We’ve chosen the southwest corner of the school, the corner of Inglis and Robie to be the site of the new garden. This location gets a lot of late morning, afternoon sun which will be great for growing. Soil samples have been taken by Jean Snow from Lake City Farms and have been sent to a lab. If the samples come back with high lead levels, the plan is to proceed with raised beds.