2012 Garden Signup

Hello All!

Welcome to the 2012 growing season!

The annual garden signup will be March 31/2012 from 12 noon - 2pm. As always, the sign up is on a first come first serve basis after the last year's gardeners (who fulfilled their volunteer hours) have had their choice on wether they would like to return.


The costs are as follows:

Returning gardeners pay $20 annual membership fee. $20 bed deposit fee is rolled over from previous year.
New gardeners pay $20 annual membership fee and $20 bed deposit fee.
Garden shed key deposit is $5 and must be paid by anyone, returning or not, who would like to have a key to the shed.

In conjunction with these fees, every gardener is expected to volunteer at least 16 hours back to the garden. This works out to 1 hour per week over the growing season. There are always tasks to be done, wether they be weeding or watering, building or composting. We offer a work bee on Wednesday nights throughout the season to give those an opportunity to help out with various tasks and to meet some of your fellow gardeners. We also have at least two early season Saturday work bees which is an excellent way to get a head start on your 16 hours!

The location for the sign up has yet to be determined but should be announced in the next week.

Great News! We'll be holding our sign up this year at the Whitehorse Food Bank. You can find it downtown at 306 Alexander Street. I look forward to meeting and/or seeing you all!

Harvest Social

The Whitehorse Community Garden will be hosting its annual "Harvest Social" from 6-7pm on Wednesday, August 17th. Drop by and say hi to fellow members and neighbours. As always, we are located under the clay cliffs at 7th and Ray Street.
For more info, contact Kathryn @ dugsyukon@hotmail.com or Randy at 633-4379.
See you there!

South Garden Dedication

The Downtown Urban Gardener's Society is pleased to announce the up-coming dedication of its South Garden to one of our cherished members and founders, Joan Craig. She has inspired and sustained this community effort since its very beginning spending countless hours making it first a reality then an important community institution. Her efforts, along with the support of her late husband Doug and her family, witness to community building at its finest.
Please join us in celebrating the dedication of our South Garden to Joan Craig on Wednesday - August 3rd, 6 pm. The Community Garden is located at 7th and Ray Streets one block behind the Yukon Inn and Plaza via Ogilvie and 7th. All are most welcome. Work bee to follow as nothing would please Joan more than to see the garden brimming with volunteer activity.

July 26th Taste Tour

Join us in the garden for our yearly Taste Tour.

Randy will tour the garden to explore what others are growing in their beds. See what's growing well this year and what others have planted. A great chance to sate your curiosity about your neighbor's plants!

July 26th, Wednesday, at 6 pm.
Work ee to follow...

Odds & Ends

Plant a Row

We've begun our weekly drop offs to the Whitehorse Food Bank. If any of you are feeling that maybe you've planted too much of something or that you won't be able to use all of it, let us know and we can donate it to the food bank. All you have to do is mark the row with a PAR stake and we'll do the rest. The produce is harvested, washed, weighed and bagged and then dropped off the next morning. The PAR stakes can be found inside the shed.
Thank you to those who have already donated. We've dropped off almost 25lbs so far!

Task Assignments

Many of you have not been completing your tasks as assigned. If you are not aware of your task, your name is listed in the shed with the task that has been assigned to you. If you do not understand what your task entails, please contact me and I will explain it further. Please remember to record your hours on the sheet, also in the shed.
Keep up the good work to all of you that have been busy with your tasks! It makes such a difference in the garden.

Catch and Release

Please let me know if the ground squirrels are getting into your garden. I've trapped and released 5 so far but with the clay cliffs so close there is no shortage in the population.








Missing in Action

It seems our black wheel barrow has gone missing as well as the hammer and hand saw. If anyone happens to know of their whereabouts, please let me know as they are missed.

June 29th Workshop

Join us at the garden on Wednesday, June 29th, at 6 p.m. for an Edible Weed workshop. Learn what weeds grow where in the garden and be surprised by just how many of them are edible!

The workshop is with Randy Lamb, our DUGS President (and weed specialist!) and is approximately an hour long. Work bee to follow.

Everyone and anyone is welcome to join us.

Compost, Potatoes & Greenhouse, Oh My!

Hi!

Hope everyone had a fantastic rainy weekend! I think it's just what the garden needed, though I also think you'll find the moisture will disappear as fast as it accumulated! The weather office is promising a warm weekend so make sure you continue to water those young plants.

Thanks!

I'd like to give a big thanks to the work crew from the Whitehorse Correctional Centre for the work they completed for us earlier this month. We now have two more beds, which, for this year, will be used to grow potatoes for the food bank. They replaced our deteriorating fence post for the fence along the lilac hedge. They also did a whole lot of weeding and mowing which after this rain you can't tell was ever done!
I'd also like to thank P&M Recycling for their donation of crushed glass for the base of the beds and to Kilrich Industries for their discount on materials.
Thank you all for your generosity and hard work!

Wednesday's Work Bee

We need to sift the compost pile as it has so much 'refuse' in it. We try to pick the garbage out when we put the piles together but it's hard to get everything. The Corrections crew kindly hauled the sifter out of the south garden and into the north up by the compost pile. We can use it to hopefully remove the bulk of the un-decomposed carbon components and anything that just will not break down in a compost.
When we're done sifting and sorting compost, we'll take a bunch of it back to the south garden to mix in to the new beds. Once that's done, we need to get the potatoes in the dirt before it's too late in the season.
If we have time after that, I'd like to get the remainder of the greenhouse painted and hopefully levelled.
And now, with hockey season behind us, there should be no excuses for not coming down to help. It will be a full, rich night. :)

New Rule

In light of a recent incident involving dogs attacking another dog, all dogs MUST BE ON A LEASH when in the garden. This means when you bring your dog to the garden, as I do myself, he/she must be on a leash no matter how friendly he/she may be. We don't want to discourage you bringing your four-legged friends with you to water your plot but we must insist that they be on a leash or tied up while you are there. We certainly don't want any animals hurt or worse, any people, especially children, bitten.
I will take this opportunity to remind you to clean up after your dogs as well.

Tasks

I want to remind everyone again that their tasks are posted in the shed. All gardeners are expected to complete their 16 hours of work in the garden over the growing season. Please remember to record your hours on the chart also in the shed. If you do not understand your task, please contact me, dugsyukon@hotmail.com, and I will explain further as to what is expected.

I went to the launch for a wonderful new book by local favourite and owner of Aroma Borealis, Beverly Gray, titled "The Boreal Herbal". It is a wealth of information from identification to medicinal plant use to delicious recipes. Worth every penny! Check it out if you can.

Hope you are all enjoying the wild roses as much as I am. See you soon!