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Look Whats Happening at the Ladner Community Garden?

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June has arrived and so has the warmer weather. You have to love the longer days for gardening. This month you will have noticed that we planted the fruit garden in the back of the community garden. The strawberries are beginning to ripen and the robins are noticing. Oh dear! We may have to net the gardens. We also planted blueberries and a thornless blackberry in the other two beds. Soon we hope to build another long bed for raspberries. 



 The strawberries are called British Sovereign and were kindly donated to us by one of our allotment holders. They are a heritage strawberry and hard to find. Thanks Bonnie and Don for the plants.


You will have noticed that our new Pesticide Free signs are up. The David Suzuki Foundation was kind enough to send them to us. Its a reminder that we are an organic garden and we are not to use any pesticides in the garden. This means no chemical fertilizers, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. NO Miracle Gro! Its not organic. Please use Gaia organics or fish fertilizer.


Sharon is doing a great job keeping the rockery looking nice. I love the Sweet William that just came in to bloom.


Now we have some projects to complete. If you were in the garden last winter you will remember this composting area was under a few inches of water. Not so good for the new wooden composters. This summer we are building this area up with the fill that has been donated. We want to make sure the composting area is neat and tidy and that our volunteers can cut the grass easily in this area.
 We cannot have the quack grass in the composters. It is very invasive and will ruin any composting efforts by others. If you have this weedy grass in or around your beds, please take it home to our new weekly curbside pickup.


We also moved three beds out of this wet area on the east side of the garden. The plan is to build an herb spiral here. Herb spirals are a form of permaculture and will enable all of us to harvest communally. Most herbs take up a lot of room in your allotments so we thought this would be a wonderful solution to saving some space.


If you haven't seen the West Coast Seeds trial gardens, take a look this week. Mark is testing a knee high wildflower mix. The flowers are so pretty and will attract all sorts of beneficial insects to our garden.
On June 23 and 24 we are building two pergolas in the center of the garden. You will see green stakes marking out the area. We will also be installing posts for our new entrance arbor on the 23rd. I hope you have marked your calendars as our first community meal will be on June 24 from 4pm-7pm. Its a potluck and we challenge you to bring something from your garden. Watch you email for an invite very soon.
Happy gardening,
Kristin
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