Problems (and Pests) in Paradise

I've been meaning to get to my garden since it rained on Tuesday, and it's now Saturday and I finally made it (for a little while, James was with me and had to rush back home to get ready for his soccer jamboree--I'll need to return this afternoon).  What greeted me was joy at seeing my lovely garden after a busy week, and then feeling my heart fall as I realised that this beautiful plot is no longer immune to gardening problems and its level of perfection has definitely plummeted.

I knew that this had started:

But didn't know that it had spread so much.  Actually, I was hoping that it hadn't spread so much. It's powdery mildew, and is caused by overly wet conditions (what?!) or high humidity.  It has been humid here this summer but nowhere near as humid as usual, and it certainly hasn't been wet.  So a little surprised and not so happy to find this little problem in my garden.  It especially affects squash plants, and none of my zucchini, pumpkin, and two precious butternut squash plants escaped unscathed.  So I pulled off the most affected leaves.  I left some of the others because I didn't want to take away all of the plants' photosynthetic ability, but I am worried it will spread.  I put the diseased leaves that I removed into a plastic bag and brought them home to our waste bin.  I pulled off extra leaves around the base of the plant where they were pretty bushy to increase air circulation, and I tried one organic-gardening-friendly home remedy:  I sprayed them with a 50% water 50% milk solution.  I used this solution on both affected and unaffected leaves, and I think I'll have to do it every few days, but I am hoping it will help.  I have also heard that a baking soda solution is helpful too--and if I need to do that, I will as well.  I'm only watering the base of the plants, and only early in the day so they have time to dry.  If you have other suggestions regarding powdery mildew and how I can fight it without using anything toxic in the garden, I'd be very grateful.

My ever ready and willing garden helper sprays the leaves too.

So now those leaves that aren't turning grey have white drips all over them. :)

Next on the list of troubles:  Colorado potato beetles.

I knew it was only a matter of time before they found my eggplants, but I thought that I would discover them as adults and get rid of them before they could reproduce in my precious patch of veggies.  Unfortunately, that was not the case:

Yuck.

Get off there, you!

I found them in voraciously-feeding-squishy-gross larval stage.  I didn't notice any egg masses, so I would be thrilled if the ones I found were the extent of it, but I'm sure that would be dreaming.  I picked off every little goober that I found and threw it (provided I didn't accidentally squish it) into the same plastic bag as the mildew-y pumpkin and squash leaves.  Next time I'll bring a mason jar with soapy water in it to collect them, I wasn't expecting to encounter these dastardly little leaf-chomping demons today.  Thank goodness for gardening gloves, is all I can say.  Yes, I'm a biologist, and yes (Johanna!) I am a little squeamish about bugs.  Not all bugs, just certain ones, but I still don't like touching most of them with bare skin.  It's my first year vegetable gardening, so I imagine I'll get over it.  Not yet, though.  Of additional concern are the following:

• I naively planted my peppers, eggplant and tomatoes all together.  Well, there is a little buffer between the eggplant and tomatoes in the form of cucumbers and a couple of barely producing peas. But I found a little guy in the cucumbers and I am sure they will discover the tomatoes later on.  I really hope that they don't take to them, my prized crop!
• The guys sharing the plot next to mine have a LOT of potatoes planted.  I saw the horrid little creatures in there too, and plan to email them to warn them about it.  I really don't want them to decide to relocate to my plot!

I know that Colorado potato beetles have a strong preference for eggplant, so I am hoping that at worst the vast majority of them will be drawn to those plants and I will have to fight the good fight in that part of the garden.  Even if I lose, if it keeps them away from the tomatoes, which I am just crossing my fingers hoping they don't enjoy nearly as much, it will be worth it.  I've mentioned before that I have only eaten eggplant once, so as disappointed as I would be, I think I could handle it.

In other, more exciting and happy news, James and I discovered this little friend rapidly crawling around in the pepper plants:

Welcome!

It's a lady bug larva.  And although it would be rare to hear me refer to any insect larval form as cute, I think this little dude is seriously cute.  Especially when I saw how fast he/she/it could go.  Not only do they turn into pretty ladybugs, which are a favourite of all small children and most people in general and are considered good luck by many, but it will eat aphids.  Lots of aphids.  AND, I discovered today upon my return from the garden, they eat Colorado potato beetle egg masses.  Wahoo!  So I hope that this little friend has a big clan just hiding out in the leaves ready to bring destruction on the pest population of my garden.  But even just one is pretty nice to find. :)

Shared with the Garden Life Link-Up, LHITS Friday Link-Up, and Homestead Barn Hop #72 at Homestead Revival.

Vegetables are Growing: Pride (and Shame) at Our Helping Hands Plot

I've been really absorbed (and perhaps a bit lost) in a lot of goings-on lately, with children, work, cooking, gardening, trying to spend time with my husband, and bracing for some big lifestyle changes that are coming at us over the next year or so.  It seems to me that summer might not always be the most productive period for this little blog, but I wanted to share a few photos from our community garden plot (and a half) as the season is now really underway.

You can tell by those super long shadows that it is pretty late in the evening!  My plot is the one at the back just beyond the wheelbarrow.  The plot in the middle is one of the food pantry plots, and this one in the foreground is a plot I am sharing with my sister.  Her seeds were just recently planted on the left, and I planted some seriously discounted late-in-the-season eggplant, Roma tomatoes, and canteloupe transplants on the right-hand side, then surrounded them with wood chips.

This is a view of my beloved plot.  Those trellises are for pumpkin, butternut squash, and zucchini.  I realize that they are likely not big enough and may not work, but it was my first year and I was trying to cram as many plants into a small plot as was humanly possible.  I'll let you know how it goes!  Note the un-mulched section on the right.  I'll give a close up of it next  (this is where the shame comes into the post)...

OK so this is my weed patch, otherwise known as the section I planted spinach, swiss chard, carrots, broccoli, and herbs.  Why does it look like I am nurturing lambsquarters, dandelions, and some random feral-oregano-type-herb-intruder?  Well, when it was tilled this year (the very first time in probably ever since the park was established) there were a lot of small clods of sod left in the garden.  I took the biggest ones out, but left the smaller ones to (a) keep some biological matter in the soil to break down and (b) when I took the clods out I lost a lot of dirt that I wanted for planting.  Unfortunately, since most of these weeds are attached to the clods, when I pull a weed out I get a big old chunk of garden with it.  I didn't want to disturb the seeds, so I sort of let the weeds go crazy.  No I really have to spend some serious time with it since my other plants are barely coming up and having to compete with some much tougher garden companions.  Oops.

Clockwise from top left: zucchini, bush pickle cucumber, butternut squash, and pumpkin.  What is the deal with bush pickle (from the name, I would assume it is supposed to grow like a BUSH) being all vine-y and not bushlike at all?  Now I am realizing I squished it in between peas and eggplant because I thought it would grow up, not out.  Lesson learned.  The pumpkin is doing really well, the zucchini not so awesome but those transplants were in need of a little love when I bought them, and my precious organic butternut squash that I grew from seed and looked like it would die a terrible, lonely, neglected death, have come back and are doing really well, even if they are smaller than the others.  Yay!

It's like "Where's Waldo" looking for desirable plants in the weed patch, but here are some broccoli, swiss chard, spinach, peas (actually they're not lost in that patch, they're being smothered by non-bush-like bush pickle cucumbers farther down) and some precious little carrot seedlings.

Exciting and healthy!  Eggplant (first time growing, probably will be my first time eating, actually) and I love those fuzzy leaves!  Tomatoes: planted better boy, lemon boy, beefsteak and Roma and they all look super happy and are growing well; red bell peppers, and corn.  Fun!  I don't care if the corn doesn't do well but thought it would be fun to try and it'll be one of very few veggie varieties the children will actually eat.

Wheelbarrow with my poor little guy's snow shovel in it.  His real little shovel is at my parents' cottage, so he had to make do with this less-than-efficient one when helping me shovel shavings into the wheelbarrow and then onto the garden beds.  Do you appreciate the edge of my finger in the corner of the shot?  I thought so.  Bet you wish you could take stellar photos like I can!

Dancing gardener boy is still excited after a long hour of hard work and dances his way home to bed.  I love this little helper!

This post is shared with the Little House in the Suburbs Linky, The Homestead Barn Hop #70 on Homestead Revival and Frugal Days, Sustainable Days.

Planting My Plot at Helping Hands

Yesterday was our big kick-off, advertised for fun, snacks, games and gardening at 3 pm.  All week the weather forecast for Saturday had a high of about 18 and sunny.  Then, two days before the big day, the weather was 18, sunny, with cloudy periods.  The night before, cloudy, with a slight chance of showers in the afternoon.  Yesterday morning, I got up, and the forecast was still iffy on the showers, probably scattered and light, but the forecast for New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was rain all around and I knew we wouldn't be that lucky to escape it.

Needless to say, it rained and rained and rained all afternoon.  And there was definitely no large, enthusiastic crowd at Helping Hands for our big opening day.  But a few of us hardy souls showed up and made the most of it!  (One even made an extremely brief appearance with her family to drop off fresh-from-the-oven banana chocolate chip muffins.  Thanks Andrea!)  I used the opportunity to plant the rest of my family's plot.  Friday night, after a day of small child stubbornness and blessed but tiring parenting, I got about 45 glorious minutes of planting to start my plot, all by myself, in the evening calm.  I got 32 square feet of 100 square feet planted with spinach, swiss chard, carrots, broccoli, parsley, dill, and summer savoury.  For the kick-off I went back and did almost the rest of it--I forgot the pea seeds, and I am waiting to root a few basil cuttings rather than growing them from seed.

The photos are pretty terrible, because it was pouring rain and I was soaked, muddy, cold, hungry, and in a rush.  I promise I'll post some artfully-taken ones as things develop through the season, but I'm so excited to have my long-awaited vegetable garden that I am posting them anyway!

I'll start with my planting plan (which I have almost perfectly stuck to):

The whole, obsessively planned and drawn, planting plan.

So there's a little overlap here, but you can get the gist of it.  I left out the cilantro, mostly because I accidentally planted summer savoury seeds in the cilantro holes, then felt absolutely fine with it because I don't like cilantro anyway.  Also, my much-loved San Marzano seedlings ended up not doing so well, so I left them out.  Sniff.

A blurry shot of red peppers, eggplant (hugged by marigolds), and bush pickle cucumber.

From left to right: Roma, Beefsteak, Lemon Boy, and Better Boy.  I SO hope these do well!  I know I could do better than tomato cages but they were 60 cents each and easy to install in the rain.  We'll see how it goes, and I'll modify next year likely.

Difficult to decipher photo of butternut squash, pumpkin, and sugar baby watermelon planted around teepee trellises.  Again, this is my first time growing squash/melon vertically, and we'll see what happens.  I used 8' 2"x2" pieces of untreated wood, lashed together at the top by zip ties, and buried between about 1- 1 1/2 feet.

Corn.

My darling, pride-of-my-summer community garden bed.

 One highlight: the Journal Pioneer showed up with a camera to document us, covered in mud and soaked to the bone, but happy, planting pumpkins, raking, and digging in the bed.  I think he even got my Jamers in the photo.  Keep your eyes peeled this week for our photo!

Shared with Homestead Barn Hop #65

Helping Hands Starts to Get Its Hands Dirty

I've been feeling pretty badly that this past month has been such a sparse one for blog posts.  I really enjoy blogging, and I like that I have a few followers.  I don't want to lose them!  I'm going to really have to make an effort to figure out a schedule that allows me to do all of the things that I want to get done around our home, yard/garden, kitchen, and with our children, (leaving, of course, time for my darling husband as well!), but that still has me sitting down in front of the computer about three times a week to share some of my thoughts, successes, failures, learning experiences, etc. here on the Hopeful Homesteader.

One of my commitments that has been taking up quite a bit of time lately is Helping Hands Community Garden.  Over the course of the last few weeks, we have had it tilled, shovelled a truckload of partially decomposed horse manure throughout the beds, tilled it a little more, put up a decorative fence at one end (thanks Caleb!), planted sunflowers (this evening), had a garden committee meeting, finalized our garden rules and gardener agreement, written a donation request letter for local garden centres, communicated with interested gardeners, planned our garden kick-off (this Saturday at 3 pm!  Please come!) and updated our Facebook page.  I think I may be leaving things out.  I honestly haven't even started gardening yet.  Well, not really.  I raked some of the larger bits of sod out of our family's plot and spread two bags of compost in it this evening.  But I haven't planted anything yet and haven't even started on the food bank gardens.  Eek!

The process, while busy, has been immensely easy, and so far the only money we have spent was to buy a roll of string to mark off the beds for the man who tilled it for us.  Considering sample budgets that we found for community gardens, a grand total of about $6.00 to have the garden actually a functioning, established area is pretty amazing.  It just seems that it is meant to be.  Our city has been incredibly supportive and helpful.  They allowed us to use the parkland as a community garden without any kind of lease, they paid to have the beds tilled, they installed an outdoor tap on the little washroom building in the park so that we would be able to access water for the beds, they lent us the use of a city truck (and a couple of employees) to help me go collect the horse manure for the beds, they will provide us with one or two picnic tables for the garden, and all along they have been so enthusiastic and happy to help.  And I heard back from a representative of the soup kitchen and food bank today, telling us that they would love to have donations of fresh produce.  I know that there have been friends of mine encouraging us and praying for the success of this garden, and it shows.  I feel so blessed to be involved!

So I wanted to share a few photos of the initial phases of the garden establishment, and I'll update throughout the season with photos as the plants come up, as we begin getting busy, as we gather the harvest, and share it with those who may not normally be able to afford organic vegetables.

For those of you living in Summerside and wondering about getting a garden plot, there are still two or three left and in order to get your hands in one, just email me at helpinghandscommunitygarden@yahoo.ca or send one of the admin a note through our Facebook page.

Tying strings and very excited to get started!

It was such a huge help to have Caleb measuring the plots and pounding in the stakes.

Katie finishing up the beds.

The beds are being tilled!  Exciting!

Happy to have these beds done and almost ready to go!

Gardening Update

We're into May now, and the snow is permanently gone; even if there's still a chance we'll see more flurries (like we did earlier in the week!), at least we know that it won't stick around.  As we inch our way into prime gardening weather, I thought I'd give a little update on what's happening around here in terms of seedlings, planting, tidying, etc.

I think things are going pretty well with the seed starting, considering it is my first year and some of the seeds were getting a little old.  The pumpkin seeds, which were fresh, have done amazingly well and I probably have too much success based on the space I have available!  But too many pumpkins isn't a bad thing, as I'm really looking forward to having my own fresh pumpkin purée for baking this coming year.  Muffins, breads, cakes and pies!  Yum.  Also, since we'll all be helping out with the food pantry garden at our new community garden, I'll just "donate" my extra seedlings and seeds to that space.  If everyone does that, I don't even think we'll have to find seed donations this year.

Happy pumpkin seedlings.

A quick note about the toilet paper rolls for seed starting.  In a way, they worked great.  Awesome for the tomatoes and basil, and the pumpkins did well too, but I did have a little problem with them. Since the pumpkin seedlings are vastly larger than the others, they established big root systems much more quickly.  Those strong, happy root systems, while great for the pumpkins, weren't so great for the tomatoes and basil--they came out the bottoms of the toilet paper rolls, along the tray, and up into the tomato and basil rolls.  I wondered why the basil was taking so long to get going, even though it germinated quickly and I think it was because it was essentially being parasitized by the pumpkins.  So I would suggest that a) you use newspaper pots for the larger vegetables that you start inside, or b) at least keep them in a different tray from the "little guys" to give them a better chance.  My basil seems to have made a comeback, but it's definitely slow going.

Recovering and finally moving along.  Poor little things!

Ah, my love--you and I will spend lots of tender moments together.

I have had pretty good success with the tomatoes.  The only thing that is really disappointing, is that due to lower germination rates/invasion by monster pumpkin roots, I only have four toilet paper rolls with healthy tomato seedlings in them.  This isn't so bad, I'm just happy to have any doing well and I can always buy seedlings at the garden centre until I become a better baby seedling raiser.  However, all the rolls that are doing well have two seedlings in them, and I have to pinch one back in each.  I thought about unwrapping the paper and teasing the two plants apart to keep all eight of the seedlings, but I'm afraid I'd damage them and end up with less than four.  So I'm going to grit my teeth, pinch those precious treasures back, and be happy that I have four organic San Marzano tomato plants this year.

I've also started planting some cold-hardy things outside.  We don't have a lot of growing space around our house, so I'm just doing a little here and there until we get the community garden tilled and established and planted.  Yesterday I put some soil into a few pots that Craig found when he cleaned out our shed (bless his heart) and planted Swiss chard in one and spinach in the other, with help from my ever-ready young helper.  I missed getting a photo of him doing it though (he particularly liked the funny shape of the chard seeds).  But I did get his sister, who came along to inspect his work after the fact.

Yes, my baby wears a bicycle helmet ALL the time.  More on that later. :)

James also made himself quite useful digging up a no-longer-wanted perennial bed.  This is the year of decluttering, getting organized and getting rid of responsibilities that I am not keeping up with, nor care to.  That means you, perennials.  When we moved in, our property was gorgeous and full of vibrant floral beauty.  Our terrible neglect of those beds has meant that we have often teetered on the precipice of a trashy property, and we've been trying to reduce the amounts of areas we have to weed and maintain.  So the giant, curved bed out front, full of all sorts of perennials as well as weigela and sand cherry bushes, is gone.  James decided to mow the soil before helping his dad sprinkle grass seed on the now bare earth and giving it a drink from the hose.

The boy was working hard, and representing. :)

So we still have lots of work cut out for us this year, but I feel pretty happy with what we've accomplished so far and where we're headed.  Hopefully we'll have a successful first vegetable garden!  And we'll spend a lot of time together as a family, being active, responsible, having fun, and loving each other in the process.

This post is shared with Garden Life Link-Up at No Ordinary Homestead.

Helping Hands Community Garden

Well, we will be gardening in Lefurgey Park this year, and hopefully, for many years to come!

Pumpkin seeds rearing their beautiful heads in anticipation of a new home.

After the municipal budget was delivered last week, we are now able to officially say that the city has given us permission to develop a community garden on municipal park land and they will support us by tilling the beds this year and providing two picnic tables for the garden.  This was wonderful news and we are so thrilled that they decided to go ahead with supporting our project!  I'm not sure how to describe how excited I am, I have been practically squealing since I found out.

Our committee (minus one member, who has the flu) met last night at my home to discuss our next steps. First of all, we needed a name.  We bandied about a few different possibilities, until a friend of mine suggested "Helping Hands Community Garden", which refers to the fact that twenty-five percent of the land will be used to grow organic vegetables for our local food bank and soup kitchen, and it seemed to ring just right in all of our ears.

We discussed roles of various committee members, how we would like the plots to look, what our expectations of gardeners are, what priorities we want to accomplish this year and what can wait until our second season, or even later.  We identified local businesses we would like to approach for help, community members that may be able to give us in-kind support, and came to the conclusion that we think we can be really frugal and run on a very small budget indeed.

I think we got off to a great start.  The individual members of the group have so much to offer already, between contacts, skills, knowledge, and enthusiasm--and although we have a lot to tackle if we want our garden up and running later this spring, I know we can pull it off.

I'll be updating further as developments arise, but wanted to share that, indeed, this community garden is a go!  We are very thankful to the City of Summerside, and in particular, Cory Thomas, who full-heartedly supported this idea in his role as city councillor.

We have the bare-bones beginnings, but it won't be long before there will be a fledgeling organic garden with newly emerging seedlings sharing hope for the future of sustainability and access to healthy, local food for everyone in the community.

If you live in the area and have any questions about the garden, how you can help, or how you can obtain a plot (there are some available!), please contact me and I'll get you sorted!  And bloggers--when everything is up and running, I plan to illustrate the steps involved in starting your own community garden.  A great way to dive into urban farming while working with your neighbours and friends!

A baby basil plant, destined to marry a succulent tomato.

*Quick note: these are seedlings grown from the seeds that I planted with James and have been patiently caring for under my grow light.  The pumpkin seeds were new, so I knew that they would grow.  The basil seeds are two years old, and still coming up with vigour!  The tomato seeds aren't doing much yet but seem to be swelling so I hope that that's a good sign, and I *think* I may have some luck with the germination of at least two butternut squash seeds!  So things in my little corner of the world seem to be going very, very well indeed.

This post is linked up to Garden Life at No Ordinary Homestead, Farmgirl Fridays, and Homestead Barn Hop at New Life on a Homestead.

The Community Garden Makes the Paper Again

The article that I posted here on the blog last week was also published in The Guardian, the Charlottetown paper as well.  And just a few days ago, the Journal Pioneer published an editorial cartoon about the garden.  I'm so glad it's getting this attention so early!  We're still in the process of forming a committee and getting the planning properly underway, so hopefully we can keep up the momentum.  Here's a photo of the Journal editorial:

My Custom Homestead-Day 7 and a Community Garden Update

Day 7
The home(stead)work for today is just to sit back and take a moment to breathe and remember that these things don't happen overnight, not to stress and put deadlines on things.  In fact, I find that my hopes for homesteading this year are happening particularly quickly!  Specifically, the community garden seems like it is coming together and we will actually see it through to fruition (vegetation?!).  I'm so excited to be a part of a project that will result in such a beautiful change to the neighbourhood and larger municipal community as a whole.

The city councillor that I mentioned in previous posts, Cory Thomas, who is helping me push this in council, is extremely committed to convincing council to put this through.  He brought it up at the last meeting (the one that I attended) in order to underline it to the media that was present and promote a possible story in our local paper.  Well, he was successful, and one was published the other night:

City resident hopes to see a community organic garden grow

Published on February 29, 2012 

Topics : 

Lefurgey Park

Rosalyn Abbott presented the idea to Coun. Cory Thomas who then brought it to council earlier this week.

Abbot said where she lives there are a lot of trees and it’s not sunny enough to have a vegetable plot.

“One of the things that really appealed to me was the idea of when establishing a community garden, establishing what they call a pantry garden as well where you grow food for the local food bank,” said Abbott. “When I saw that I thought that is a real need in our community.”

Abbott said 25 per cent of the produce grown in the community garden could be earmarked for the local food bank.

“On P.E.I. you hear a lot about the food banks needing more donations but a lot of their donations come from non-perishable food items and they’re no necessarily local or always all that healthy,” Abbott said. “I thought that something that would be really great for the food bank and the soup kitchen would be to have fresh, local organic vegetables donated every year.”

She added a condition could be that people who would like to have a plot in the garden help out in the food pantry garden as well.

“That made me decide that now is the time to really move on it,” said Abbott. “It was one thing for me to want to place the garden but the thought of being able to promote something like this made it seem all the more important to get cracking on.”

Abbott said there are effects a community garden can generate.

“The benefits of community gardening seem to be endless,” she said. “It gets the members outside and active. I think people are a lot more likely to meat vegetables when they’re growing them themselves. It provides us with a very health diet.”

Abbott added it is also a great educational opportunity for children.

“I would like to put in a small children’s garden where is could have little tiny plots and they could plant their own vegetables and watch them grow,” she said. “I’m hoping to involve the community youth in the planning process as well.”

Thomas, who supports the initiative, said there is space in Lefurgey Park behind the playground suitable for a community garden.

“I don’t see this as a major expense,” said the councillor. “I see this as a small expenditure and we could gradually build on it and enhance that park.”

The concept has been bought up in pre-budget planning meeting.

“We’ll see when we get into budget discussion where that goes,” said Thomas.

Abbott hopes to have an opportunity to make a presentation to council about the community garden.

Granted, the typographical and grammatical errors were a bit of a disappointment, but I hear that they are lacking a managing editor at the paper and the reporter I spoke to probably was in a rush to get the story in.  Some of the quotes aren't exactly right... but, I am thrilled that they took this story on and are bringing it to the attention of our city.  It seems like a concrete step ahead in the right direction and, in the coming week, I am going to start working harder to build on the plans for a community garden in order to show council that I am serious about coordinating this effort.  Hopefully, I can find a number of like-minded residents who would like to be on a planning committee for it.


This post concludes the first seven days of homestead planning that are introduced in Jill Winger's "Your Custom Homestead: Awakening a Fresh Vision of Homesteading".  (You can find her blog here.) There are 14 more days of home(stead)work left to have a look at, but I think I'll take a break from that for next week and return to regular posts about the community garden, recipes, my children, etc.  I'll return to this process in a couple of weeks.  I hope you're enjoying following on this journey with me!  And any time you have some information that would help, I'd definitely appreciate it.


This post is linked to the Living Well Blog Hop #31 on Common Sense Homesteading

My Custom Homestead-Day 6

Day 6
Priorities, priorities...  Out of all the hopes, dreams, goals, statement of purpose, mapping, etc., what are my urgent and not-so-urgent priorities?  What needs to be done ASAP and what can wait a few months or more?  I'll list them out in relation to my goals for this first year that I outlined a couple of days ago.

Urgent:

1. Get the community garden approved, implemented, up and running.  I really want all of this to happen this year, but even if we just get all of the infrastructure in place with beds ready to plant next spring, that would still be a success in my mind.
• On that note, start some seeds.  Nothing says I have faith in this project than starting a bunch of seeds that will need a home, right?
2. Get city and police approval for my backyard laying hens.  At the moment, I have a great source of farm fresh eggs at our local farmers' market, so it's not imperative that this happen immediately.  However, I really want to befriend some feathered ladies!
• Build the chicken coop so that my girls have somewhere to live, and I'm sure having it already established will help with getting approval.
3. Learn to make soft cheese.  I am craving some stracchino, and I really want to try mozzarella as it is one of my favourite things in the universe.

Not-so-urgent:

1. Attend the beekeepers association meeting that I am hoping to get to.  I really want to, but bees aren't in my immediate future anyway so if I can't do it in the next little while, that's ok.
2. Get cracking in the kitchen with increased preserves.  I really hope to ramp up my preserving this year, but that won't be until the summer/fall anyway.

I'd say those are enough priorities for now, I could get a little carried away if I let myself!

Quick Community Garden Update

I attended a city council meeting this evening where the community garden was brought up for the second time to council.  It was a brief mention, but I wanted to be there to put a face to the project and show that it is being spear-headed by a real person who is really standing behind it.  I'm hoping I hear soon about how to move forward, I feel somewhat at a standstill until I know that it has been approved.  Then I can get on with finding all my volunteers, in-kind supporters, etc.

After my brief appearance at City Hall, I scooted out to the outskirts of town for a Life Group meeting.  As it wrapped up, the lady who closed in prayer took a moment to pray for this community garden.  It took me a bit by surprise as there were some big issues that some of the other women had asked to receive prayer support for--but it was really lovely and I hope that with rolled-up shirt sleeves, community involvement, and yes, prayer, this community garden will really get off the ground (into raised beds!).

Maybe it could look a little something like this?

Winter Woes and Springtime Dreaming

For the record, I actually enjoy winter.  In fact, I've been a bit dismayed thus far this year that there hasn't been more snow.  I don't like driving on slippery roads, but I love a good dusting that turns trees, shrubs, and fences into a sparkling diamond wonderland.  However, just in the last few days, I've been dreaming of spring as we have had two little sweethearts battling the flu, a storm that dropped 30 cm of snow on our city and followed it up today with a wind chill of -33 C (apparently that's -27.4 F for you Americans!).

This is the site where I hope a community garden will bloom next year (taken before the storm this weekend!)

Since I started blogging again, I've been visiting more and more blogs, particularly those with a focus on homesteading, children, cooking, gardening, and canning.  The majority of them are written in the US, and a few of them are starting to break my heart a little bit--they're already planting their gardens!  As in, peas are going in the ground.  And a blogger that I follow on twitter posted yesterday that it was 80 F in her hometown.  In February!  It seems dreamlike!

Now I know that, obviously, there are very different climates in the states, particularly in the south and on the west coast, compared to my fair isle.  Climates that allow avocados to be grown locally.  Where oranges and lemons are plucked from branches right outside the back door.  Where winter means rain, not snow.  But it still seemed so miraculous to me, when I read this week that there are places where right now fingers are deftly sowing pea (and other) seeds into the soil.

It makes me think about the things that I'd like to plant this year.  I don't yet have an established planting space--I'm hoping for the community garden, but even if it gets off the ground, this year might just be the year of getting the paperwork and infrastructure taken care of.  I am hoping to have a back-up plot out at my parents' cottage, but I'm not sure just how big it will be and it is pretty breezy out there on the north shore.  So I'm not going to make any far-fetched planting plans for this year, but am just going to go in with realistic goals of growing a few of the things that I know I will use.

Most important out of all of these? Tomatoes and basil!  I can smell them already.  I am so looking forward to working in the garden with the kids, especially James, who is at an age to enthusiastically help.  I feel so excited and motivated to get composting and digging and planting and watering and waiting.  Our last frost date is officially May 9th in Summerside, but I wouldn't put anything in before June 10th or so just to be on the safe side.  So I have a little waiting to do yet...

What vegetables have you found to be the most successful in your gardens?  And is there anything that I definitely have to plant?

Planning a Community Garden - 1

So I think I already mentioned that my backyard isn't sunny enough for a very productive vegetable garden.  I've also established that I want a productive vegetable garden.  So what's my game plan?

Establish a garden somewhere else, nearby, that I can walk to, that will get a lot of sunlight, that will bring in members of the community, that will give back to the community, that I can share with my children and husband, that I can be proud of, and that I can harvest produce from throughout the season.

A community garden is exactly what I need.  Unfortunately, there is only one in Summerside and it's on the other side of town.  Fortunately, I live very close to a park that has a lot of unused, empty space and that gets loads of sun.  Did I mention that it is exactly half way between my home and my parents' home?  Perfect for playing with kids and getting visits in with Nana and Grandad.  Could it be more perfect?  I think not.

I've been thinking about lobbying for (and putting myself forward to coordinate) this community garden for over a year, but have just really started trying to get the ball rolling now that Craig and I decided to stay here for about three more years.  I'd like to have spent this time in Summerside really enjoying where we live as fully as possible, and contributing to the life of the community.  So I contacted my city councillor, Cory Thomas, who is a great, super-approachable guy, with my idea and I was thrilled to hear that he was excited about it and will partner with me to promote it to City Council as well as city management.  He also independently suggested to me the exact location I was hoping for!  I love being on the same page as local politicians, it's a really good feeling.  We had a phone chat about it last week, and then he emailed me two days later to let me know that he had already approached council with our idea and that council and management were both very receptive to the possibility.

We'll continue to push for it, and in the meantime, I'm going to do what I do best--plan.  I want to have an outline of what we'll need in order to get started, an idea of how many local residents would be interested in volunteering and/or maintaining a plot, an actual plan for what the proposed garden will look like on the ground, and a list of community members and organizations that will be able to help contribute to make it the special place I am envisioning.  As these things (hopefully) fall into place, I'll update here on the blog and you can follow along with me as we see it come together.  It's so exciting!  And I'll be able to grow more than patio tomatoes!  Win.