Ladner Community Garden

Here it is the end of 2011 and a new year is about to begin. We had a great year in the new Ladner Community Garden. In January of 2011 my friend, Michelle and I talked about the need for a community garden in Ladner. All you had to do was get two passionate gardeners together and the vision appeared. We knew what we wanted so we started talking about it with other gardeners. Then we had to find the land for a community garden. After lots of driving around looking at potential sites, we approached the Corporation of Delta. We met with them and they seemed very excited about the garden We were ecstatic to say the least. They offered us two parks to choose from and we couldn't contain our excitement. So in May of 2011 after much paperwork we built the garden. We couldn't have done it without all the volunteers who came out in full force to lend a hand wherever they could. It was a fun time and a new community within a community was built. Friendships were made and we all learned ...

Have you heard the news? The Ladner Community Garden Society is holding the first Seedy Saturday in the lower mainland. Are you wondering what a Seedy Saturday is, click here. It will be a fun family event and a great way to kick off the new garden season. We have several great presentations lined up for anyone attending this event and they are all free! Our first presenter, I would like to announce, is Brian Campbell. Brian is a certified beemaster and beekeeper. Brian offers courses and hands on workshops for people interested in learning about bees. Brian is knowledgeable in both native and honey bees. I listened to one of Brian's presentations at the local garden club and his passion and enthusiasm for bees is contagious. Brian is president of the Bee Keepers Association, a BC associate master gardener, and beemaster for West Coast seeds. For more information, check out Brian's website at Blessed Bee Farm here. I look forward to hearing his presentation at Seedy Saturday ...

I hope you have all marked your calendars. Seedy Saturday is not far away. Vendor registrations are rolling in and this is looking like it will be a fun family event. We will be having gardening displays and speakers, educational displays, seeds, seeds and more seeds, plant specialists and interactive displays for the children. I hope you can attend. If you are a vendor and would like to attend, please shoot me an email to deltagardener@dcccnet.com and I will send you a registration package. This will be a great way to kick off the new garden season of 2012. Did you know we are the first Seedy Saturday south of the river here in Delta? I cant wait to see what new garden trends are coming!

Have you ever been to a Seedy Saturday? Seedy Saturday marks the beginning of a late winter and an early spring optimism found in all gardeners. We are so excited about the upcoming garden season as it brings a promise of seeds planted, summer harvests and food for our families for months on end. I attended the Seedy Saturday at VanDusen Botanical Gardens last year and it was so much fun. I came home with seeds and new blueberry bushes for my garden. It was like a kickoff to the new gardening season. Imagine a room packed with gardeners, farmers, and residents passionate about gardening, food security and the environment. Just the thought has me anxious for the next Seedy Saturday. It cant come soon enough as I sit here on a dark wet winter day. The Ladner Community Garden Society decided it was time for our community to hold a Seedy Saturday event. Its an event where you can come to swap open pollinated seeds, especially the heirloom types. I love starting plants from seeds so I have...

On January 28,2012 the Ladner Community Garden Society is holding the first Seedy Saturday event in Delta. I am so excited. Yes, I am addicted to seeds. There are so many different plants you can grow from seed as opposed to just buying the same old plants year after year. This event will be happening at the Ladner Baptist Church on Ladner Trunk Road from 10-2. We will have seed vendors, plant specialists, soil companies and lots of garden accessories. Just think, what you don't receive for Christmas you can buy at Seedy Saturday. Its the perfect kickoff for the new garden season. I can't wait to see the latest trends in gardening, can you? Along with all the great things to buy, we are also having speakers every hour. Brian Campbell will be talking about mason bees for your garden. Its very timely as in February we have to start thinking about making sure the mason bee homes are cleaned out and ready to go. If you are interested in being a volunteer or a vendor at this event p...

Here I am procrastinating and not getting the garlic in until today. I bought it two weeks ago so no excuses, right? I was excited to get some hardneck garlic as it was sold out everywhere except at one of the local farms. Each clove of garlic was broken apart into individual cloves. I was able to plant 27 cloves of garlic in the children's garden. Won't they be excited to see it in the spring? It will be a good plant to use when we study the senses. I planted the cloves three inches deep and about six inches apart allowing them enough room to grow. Sure glad I planted yesterday as the forecast is for rain for the next week. The planting is all done and its time to put them to bed. I added a few markers to mark the rows and I was done. The last job of the day was to harvest a few carrots from the bed. The beets we planted from Tree and Twig Farm are still not all ready to harvest. I may just harvest the beet leaves to try a new beet bun recipe I saw on Linda'...

Paper, paper, read all about it! That's the slogan that came out of dear hubby's mouth when we started the lasagna garden at the Ladner Community Garden. To get our garden started we had to lay down sheets of damp newspaper in the area where we wanted a new garden. Are you wondering why newspaper? Newspaper will block out the sun and stop the grass from growing. It also provides a dark damp place and earthworms just love it. First we needed leaves.There is no shortage of them at this time of year so we saved about ten bags of leaves from our yard. Little did we realize we would need about twenty more bags to complete the garden. We placed a thick layer of newspaper down and then dumped leaves all over the paper. Wouldn't kids love to have a leaf throwing party doing this? The leaves were piled over the newspaper about six inches deep. Over the winter the leaves will decompose and the pile will shrink. In the spring it will look like new soil. This is how the new lasagna gar...

We have a new composter at the community garden. This one was made with wood that was donated to the garden. This is my favourite style of compost box as you can access the finished compost easily by slipping out the boards on the front of the box. So when you want to place your compostable material in the box, do NOT open it like this! This will put pressure on the hinges and possibly break the lid. Look closely at the right side of the box and you will see a string. It is attached to a thin piece of wood.This piece of wood is used to hold the lid open on the box. Lifting the piece of wood out of its resting place on the side, you will see it has a notched end.Fit the notches to the front of the box to hold it open. It should look like this when the opener is in place. Now it is safely held open so you can do your composting. You will also notice that we lined the box with hardware cloth. This is used on the inside of the compost box to keep any unwanted critters from deciding our com...

The Ladner Community Garden is busy cleaning up in preparation for winter. You will see that the new rock wall beds are almost complete. They are looking fabulous and will be even better next year once the plants have filled in. There is no shortage of plants when it comes to gardeners. People have dropped off plants for us to use and we thank you. Now we are racing mother nature to get things done. Next week we have the grade three class coming to prepare a lasagna garden. Not heard of a lasagna garden? Its the lazy mans way to create a new bed. We want to install and design a fruit and herb garden for next spring but taking up all that heavy sod has my back groaning. We will be not taking grass up. The students will be laying wet newspaper down where the new garden is planned to be. Once the ground is covered with newspaper, we will have a leaf throwing party. Those leaves in your yard are great for the garden. We will be dumping leaves on the wet newspaper so that the pile is at lea...

Here it is October and I cant believe how the Ladner Community Garden has grown.Little did we dream back in January that our idea would grow and be so abundant. Lots of work has been done in the garden since the end of May and I would like to thank all the volunteers for helping to make this such a wonderful place.You guys rock. Its kind of sad to see the garden season winding down. I don't look forward to seeing the community garden bare this winter. We have lots of plans for the spring. If you haven't been by the garden lately, check out the new rock wall garden that has been built. There will be another similar rock garden built across from it so that the front of the garden is a border of flowers as you walk by. Next on the agenda is to build a shade structure so that you can walk over with a cup of coffee and relax. We hope to start building this in the spring of next year. We are also looking for the perfect arbor to complete our entrance. We know what we want so its jus...

When the idea of starting a community garden came up last year, I had no idea how it would end up.I tried to visualize the end result but I am overwhelmed as it has exceeded my expectations. Not only has it enabled first time gardeners to grow food but it has created a new community within the wonderful one we live in. If you think you are going to just drop by and water your garden, guess again. It rarely happens as conversations flow from one gardener to another, and ideas are shared.Hours later you go home wondering what you did in the garden but that's okay. New friends were made, lessons learned and that's what community gardening is all about. Its hard to believe this part of the allotment garden looked like this at the beginning of July. We had a late planting season and things were just beginning to grow. These are the same gardens as of August 30! I love the lushness of all that food growing. The food bank garden was part of our design. We wanted...

Here it is almost the end of August and the community garden is looking great. Yesterday one of our volunteers picked four bags of beans, some lettuce and peas and donated it to the local food bank. The food bank staff were excited to receive fresh vegetables. Not only are people growing vegetables at the community garden, there are also flowers. These Sweet Peas are beautiful! For those of you who live around here, our cool wet spring has not been the easiest for these flowers. I had just one Sweet Pea plant germinate. The soil was just too cold back in April. If you drive by the Ladner Community Garden, you can't help but spot the masses of sunflowers growing. Aren't they just the most cheerful plant to grow? They also bring pollinating insects to the garden. In the photo above is a late planting of beets. I was sent some Detroit beet seeds from another gardener in Ontario. We are participating in a country wide planting of beets. We all planted around...