Hello Everyone and welcome to a new, and hopefully fruitful, growing season at the Whitehorse Community Garden!
I'm sure everyone is anxious to get going in the garden so I'll get straight to the details. First off, many of you being new gardeners have asked me what is good to plant in your garden. You can plant whatever you want, short of anything illegal, but the real question is what should you plant to get a decent yield. I'm including a link to a previous post, here, that should answer your questions on that. As well, I will be holding a workshop/information session on Wednesday, May 18th on "Getting Your Garden Started". It's an informal affair at the garden and I'll touch on what to grow, tips for planting, soil preparation, using compost, planting techniques, etc. It would be a good time to ask any questions you may have before the long weekend which is generally the date we (in the southern Yukon) use (loosely) use for getting our gardens planted. The workshop starts at 6pm and is followed by our weekly work bee at 7pm.
On the topic of work bees, we have a work bee every Wednesday night from 7-9pm, rain or shine, unless it's really shine-y and hot and in that case I usually won't show up. Our hot days are so few and far between, I'd rather be out and about enjoying the sun instead of digging in the dirt :) Rainy days on the other hand are great for weeding! ;)
I will be holding an additional work bee this Saturday, May 14, from 9-3pm. Feel free to show up whenever and for as long as you can. All and any help is appreciated. All hours worked at our work bees go to your 16 volunteer hours in the garden.
On the topic of 16 volunteer hours in the garden... As your Gardener's Contract states, all gardeners are to "contribute 16 hours over the course of the season for volunteer communal work ...". We're finding that many gardeners are not holding up their end of this important part our philosophy as a community garden and many are doing far more than their share (Bravo!) and so we have a new rule this year: Any gardener, returning or otherwise, who has not fulfilled their 16 hours of volunteer communal work will lose the privilege of returning to their plot the following season and first choice of their plot will be given to new gardeners and/or returning gardeners looking to change plots. In other words, your plot will be up for grabs.
Something else I will be doing a little different this year, is that I will be assigning every gardener a small manageable piece of the garden to take care of. This should eliminate the rather large tasks (mostly weeding) that gardeners are faced with when I ask them to take care of a complete section of garden. There will be a few extra tasks (mostly watering) that will be assigned as well.
All hours are to be recorded on the monthly chart in the shed. I will have the chart up this week.
In other news, the outhouse is now on site and, as usual, use at your own risk.
I expect the water to be turned on this week sometime, if it hasn't been already. Those of you in the south garden will need a demo of how to turn the water on and, most importantly, off once that happens. If you can understand it, I did do a post a while back on the steps and you can see that, here. If it doesn't make sense, I can show you how when I see you.
I think that's it for now. I hope to see many of you at the work bee tomorrow night. Stay tuned to the blog for any updates in the garden.
