2010 DUGS AGM

The Downtown Urban Gardeners Society(DUGS) will be holding its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, December 1st at the Whitehorse Public Library at 7 p.m. Everyone and anyone is welcome to attend.
Join us for tea and coffee and a slide presentation on "The First Decade of the Whitehorse Community Garden" followed by the AGM and a dessert potluck. For more information, call Randy at 633-4379.

Harvest Potluck Social

Mark your calendars! Sunday, September 12th from 1-3pm, join us at the garden for our 2nd annual Harvest Potluck Social. Bring a small dish if you can. Even better if it's made from something you grew at the garden! Come and meet your fellow gardeners, ask questions or just check out the other garden plots.

All are welcome.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Hello Gardeners,

Well, July is upon us already. This means everyone’s garden should be well under way. The rain has been a really good thing these past few days. If we could get a little heat now, things will be wonderful.

All gardeners have now been assigned a task. The tasks were sent out via email and as well are posted in the shed on the wall. If you are unsure of what your task is or how you should be going about it, please contact me at the dugs email address.
All gardeners are to give 16 hours of work back to the garden as part of the gardener’s contract. This works out to about 1 hour per week over the growing season.

I’ve been trying to keep up with the weed eating in the garden. It’s a big job and because it can never be fully accomplished in one evening it seems to have grown back by the time I come back to finish it off! That's why it always looks half finished :)
Having said that, I’ve noticed that very few of you are keeping the weeds and grass down around your beds. I realize in some areas it is tough to deal with the grass, but you are still expected to maintain a perimeter around your bed somewhat free of weeds. At the very least, please take down the tall grass that grows close to the beds. The weed eater can’t get that close.

If anyone knows of a used, working, gas powered lawn mower looking for a good home, we would love to offer it one.

I think that’s it for now. Wednesday night work bees are still happening, rain or shine. 7-9pm every Wednesday night. What we do depends on how many show up. Lately, the attendance has been minimal so it is mostly “beautification” projects on the go…Hope to see you there!

TIP: After a rain is the best time to pull weeds. The soil is softer and much more willing to give up those weedy roots!

Tarragon in the Master Gardeners bed.

Zucchini

Horseradish and Delphinium

Spinach, Broccoli (?) and Swiss Chard

Zucchini blossom

A couple of new features on the blog. I added two tabs up at the top of the page, “Looking for Volunteers…” and “Friends of the Garden”. One will list the larger tasks we will need help with and the other is a place to put any announcements from our friends or even from yourselves, should you have anything you’d like to post. If you do, email me and I’ll be sure to get it posted.

The wheel barrow with flowers at entry gate –this wheelbarrow has served its life helping out at the garden and has now gone on to greener pastures serving as a flower planter. It would be greatly appreciated if everyone would help water and dead-head as needed. When dead-heading, be sure to remove the seed pod as well as the dead blossom

A small herb garden box has been established in the main garden above the demo plot next to the picnic tables. When the herbs are established, feel free to pick some for your favourite recipes. There are paper towels in the shed in which they can be wrapped. As with the flower wheel barrow, please water and pluck a few weeds as you pass by, if needed. The red box next to the herbs will hopefully be the home of zucchini/squash plants, the "fruit " of which will be given to the food bank. Please help water if they look thirsty.

The "food bank garden plot" in the south garden has been planted. The plantings have been artistically arranged so the colours and overall look should be very attractive. The produce being grown this year is peas, potatoes, zucchini, carrots, Swiss chard, spinach and beets Thanks to the Gauthier-Grigg family and Godefrey and Keiko for their efforts. Don't hesitate to pull a few weeds in this plot should the need arise.

Have you noticed the composting area seems to change frequently? We have a gentleman who has graciously taken on the task of working the compost (Yay!) Dean Metcalfe was involved with the garden in its early stages working with Joan Craig, one of our founding members, and he approached us asking if he might do this work. We’re excited to see this development and hope to see it through to what looks like some great compost.
How can you help? Feel free to drop of your compost at the garden. We do ask that you keep it free of paper and cardboard(coffee filters are okay) as well as any meat scraps (don’t want to attract animals). No weeds please.

While planting, watering and weeding you garden box, please remember to remove weeds and dandelions from the area around your box. The dandelions are raging out of control. Please help by, at the very least, deadheading the flowers before they go to seed. Remember to put all weeds in our new weed compost (see previous post) now located on the former gazebo site.

Task assignments…*sigh* I’m still working on it. But you know, many of you have been with the garden for at least one full season and I think it’s fairly obvious what needs to be done especially if you were assigned a task last year. So until, the tasks are assigned feel free to fill water barrels, weed the raspberry, saskatoon and rhubarb trenches, water common areas, pull weeds etc. The beauty of the garden will always be equal to the sum of the work put into it.

Wednesday Night Workbee
I want to move one of the picnic tables into the south garden so those that garden on that side have a place to sit if needed. The pile of gravel, also in the south garden needs to be distributed around the beds to help with the muck that forms when the ground gets wet. We need to concentrate on the dandelions in the north garden as well. They are thriving this year and as I said earlier, I’d like to get that under control before they all go to seed.

That’s it for now. Hope to see you soon!

Big post tonight. I hope to be doing regular posts on Mondays to fill everyone in whats happening for the upcoming week...

Our New Weed Compost

As some of you may have noticed, the gazebo has been dismantled and removed from the garden. In its place we are starting our new weed compost. In the past we’ve always taken the weeds to the compost at the city landfill but that has always proven to be a pain as we don’t always have a volunteer with the wheels to do so. So I figured why not try and compost the weeds ourselves.
So…all weeds, from now on, should be deposited on top of the little hill where the gazebo used to reside. Some of you may not have seen the gazebo; it was up on the little hill between the north and south gardens. The buckets will still remain at the front of the shed for easy access to everyone - the only difference is that everyone will dump their own weeds. This compost is for weeds ONLY. We are composting this just for the sake of composting. It will not go back into the garden plots. All other organic matter should still be going into the regular compost. ie, grass clippings with no seeds, any cuttings or other vegetable matter from your garden bed.
On the topic of the weeds, all gardeners are to maintain a two to three foot perimeter around their plot reasonably free of weeds. Although we try to regularly weedeat (see below), the dandelions and others need to be taken up root and all.

Weedeating

Weed eating of the common areas of the garden will begin this week. Please ensure that the area around your garden box is free of rocks, twigs, wood scraps, twigs and other things can cause the cutting cord to tangle. Such items may also become dangerous projectiles. Please rake the weed cuttings and put them in the new weed composting area where the gazebo was located. Please do not leave the clippings on the ground or in buckets around the shed.
Individual gardeners will be responsible for removing grass growing through slats in the sides of the garden boxes as the weed eater doesn't like to climb walls.

Thank you for your help and cooperation in this matter and an even bigger thank you to Rita (plot#10) for taking on this huge task.

Dirt

Just so everyone knows, we do have some dirt on site available to top up beds or add to any side containers you may have by your plot. There is a pile, being taken over by weeds and grass on the north side of the greenhouse. The other pile, while it lasts is in the south garden in front of the big beds.

Gloves

Although I realize it is a personal preference, I notice that many gardeners do not wear gloves when working in the garden. I suggest wearing gloves to all gardeners as a matter of personal safety and hygiene as things may not always be as clean as you think they are.

Task Assignments

I’m touching base with the last of the gardeners and hope to have the task assignments done for this weekend. I do have a couple of projects right now and I’m wondering if anyone is interested. All hours spent go towards your 16 hours of volunteer time:

1.Person to cut and paint plywood for lids for water barrels (we supply materials only – no saw)

2.Person to rebuild bulletin board on outside of shed. Creative design encouraged and welcomed. (we supply materials)

3.The water barrels behind the shed have holes in them. Anyone have an idea on how to fix them? And if so, would you like to repair them?

4.Creative and artistic person to make up the plot signs for the south garden similar to the existing ones in the north garden. (we supply wood and paint)

5.Person to build frames to shore up rhubarb on sloped hill in north garden. We want to use the leftover pieces of timber from the south garden beds. We have a design idea but are open to other suggestions.

If anyone is interested in any of these tasks, please contact me at the DUGS email: dugsyukon@hotmail.com


Wednesday Night Workbee

We need to get the Plant a Row bed in the south garden tilled and planted. We also will have some weed eating to do and possibly some shelf building for the greenhouse. There is also that big pile of dirt still waiting to be moved into the big square bed(south garden.
Thank you to those of you that have been showing up for the work bees. Your time spent there is always greatly appreciated.

THANKS to those who showed up for the work bee on Wednesday night. With their hard work, we were able to get the compost pile turned and ready to go and as well another one started. On the topic of the compost pile, although the pile is for all the gardeners to use, we ask that you are conscientious in your use as it is all we have for now and we want there to be enough for all. Most of the beds are in very good condition soil wise and most gardens had compost added to them last year. The exception to this would be some of the newer beds in the south garden and I plan to have that taken care of on Saturday, our next work bee...

WORK BEES On Saturday, May 15th from 8am-12pm, I will be holding another work bee. We have lots of toiling, tilling, digging and dirt moving to do so if you are able to help it will be greatly appreciated. Hours worked at work bees are applied directly toward your 16 hours of volunteer work in the garden (over the growing season) that we ask of our gardeners as part of their membership. I will be posting a sheet on the back door of the shed with everyone's name so that you will be able to keep track of any hours that you work in the garden. I will also be working on a list of individual duties for those of you that are not able to make the work bees.

WATER The work order for the water has been put in to the city and we hope that by next weekend we should have that part of the garden functioning. The north garden is relatively simple to deal with as far as hooking up hoses goes, but the south garden is a little more involved and I am likely going to have to show everyone from that area how to deal with that. However, until the water is hooked up, I can't show you. I did try to explain it last year in a blog post and you can click here to read that post. I think it's probably easier to learn "hands-on".

Typically most of you will water with a watering can. It will be someones task to keep the water barrels full and we suggest that you use the water from those barrels to water your plants. The cold water from the hose can be really shocking to the roots of plants. Your plants will appreciate it. I mean really, whens the last time you enjoyed a cold bath...:)

DUMP RUNS Is there anyone out there with a truck who would be interested in doing dump runs for the garden? This would count as volunteer hours. Mostly it would involve taking weeds to the city compost, as we cannot compost them in our small on site compost pile, and perhaps the occasional bag of garbage or prunings from early season clean-ups. If there is anyone out there interested it would be great if you could help out. Please email if you can.

In other news not related directly to the garden, I found a great link for building Bumblebee Houses. It would be a great and relatively simple project for kids and even better if you could convince a willing member of the springtime Bumblebee population to occupy it. :)

There are some great gardening oriented workshops listed here on the Foodscapers website. Heidi Marion, formerly of Wild Blue Yonder Farms, gardened with us last year and was a huge contributor to our Plant A Row program. It was more like 'Plant an Entire Garden Bed' in her case :). Anyway, she has a green thumb no matter where she operates and has an interesting website. Check it out.

If anyone has anything garden oriented or something you think other gardeners may find interesting that you would like to see posted here on the blog, please let me know and I'll see what I can do. Also, if there are ever any questions or concerns about the garden itself, feel free to contact me, Kathryn, at dugsyukon@hotmail.com.

I think that's it for now. I hope to see you all at the work bee tomorrow!

Deadline For Returning Gardeners...

Last years gardeners have until April 30th to let me know wether they plan to return this season. If I do not hear from you, your bed will be re-assigned to a new gardener. Please do not start gardening until you contact me.

We have a wonderful increase in the interest of gardening at the Community Garden the past few years with this year being no exception. Our waiting list is long and full of people eager to get digging and planting! Please let me know...

Our date for the bed assignment will be Saturday, May 8th from noon - 2 p.m. This is the time that I will let everyone know which bed is theirs, assign keys and collect any money owing.

I'm working on a work bee schedule and will let everyone know when that will commence which will be very soon now that the ground is drying up.

Hope to hear from you if I haven't already!

2010 Garden Sign Up

Hello!

Just a quick note to let everyone know the annual garden bed sign up for the Whitehorse Community Garden will be taking place on Saturday, March 20th at the Whitehorse Public Library (in the meeting room) from 12 noon-2 pm.

There is a $20.00 membership fee per year and a $20.00 refundable bed clean-up deposit for that service.

Looking forward to seeing both familiar and new faces!

2009 Annual General Meeting

DUGS is having its AGM on Wednesday, January 27th. It will be held at Maryhouse located at 504 Cook Street. Potluck supper at 6 p.m. and meeting to commence at 7 p.m.

We're a bit late this year with our gathering but as the saying goes, "Better late than never"!
Everyone is welcome to attend. Anyone interested in becoming a board member? You're especially welcome to attend! It's a great time to express any thoughts, concerns or ideas.
Hope to see you there...

Kathryn