Guided Work Party - June 5th

Supports erected for the upcoming cucumbers

More tomato supports

Despite the dreadful weather forecast and the occasional downpour, we managed to complete the usual two hour work party today; we erected both the tents and had to run for cover at least once!  However, we were able to erect the vertical supports and plant out tomato, tomatillo and squash plants, and Selina showed us how to remove the first flowers and lower leaves to encourage the plants to develop healthy root systems before starting to fruit. We had a surprise harvest of young lettuce, arugula and spinach leaves, some celery stems, and a few rogue potatoes that were growing in the wrong place!  Weeding continued in the leek and onion bed, and the squash bed before planting commenced.  

The Buddhist contingent arrived as we finished, and recited a liturgy before distributing and blessing the worms in the Edible Forest area and a few in the compost bin.

Angela

Guided Work Party - June 1st

Today we launched the planting of our heat loving summer crops. With nighttime temperatures finally getting closer to 15 degrees, we started to plant up the Four Season Summer plot and the Salsa plot with tomatoes, tomatillos, and summer squash.

 

Selina gave instructions to the group about cutting off the lower tomato leaves and burying the tomato stems deeply to encourage more root development, as well as cutting off any flowers on the plants, so that the plant’s energy focuses on growing more roots for a stronger, more productive tomato plant.

 

The tomatoes planted included the three cherry varieties for the FarmFolk CityFolk Citizen Seed Trials, which included the tried and true hybrid Sungold and two open-pollinated varieties Soleil and Strawberry Cherry. We also planted 6 varieties of winter squash in the decomposing straw bales from last year and put in new white stemmed chard seedlings in the Arabic plot.

 

Volunteers enjoying Silva’s delicious lunch!

The day was topped off by a NSG-funded lunch of chard fatayers and banana bread, courtesy of Silva, much appreciated by everyone! For refreshing beverages, Selina brought soda stream sparkling water with homemade flavouring choice of rhubarb rose cordial or rhubarb angelica ginger shrub. Surprisingly, the ‘shrub’ was the favourite, made with apple cider vinegar.

 

Link for Rhubarb Rose Cordial

http://www.morselsandsauces.com/2016/04/rhubarb-rose-gin-gimlet.html?m=1

 

Link for Rhubarb Shrub

https://www.delicious.com.au/recipes/rhubarb-ginger-shrub/s6g5c5wy  (*250 grams of sliced angelica stems were added to the rhubarb infusion)

Guided work party update May 29th

It turned out to be a fine dry day, despite the rainy forecast. We tackled the invading red raspberries that had infiltrated the wild raspberry patch, although sometimes it is difficult to tell which is which! And we finished weeding the edible forest and border areas. Then we tackled the roots bed, removing tiny annual weeds from the turnips; also, we thinned out the turnips and replanted the thinnings in an empty bed - they may not survive but it's worth a try. And the leeks and onions bed was long overdue for weeding, which will require finishing off next time.The wet weather boards have now been brushed off and stored behind the compost bins ready for the next deluge.
Angela Hoy

Summer veggie planting coming soon!

We’ll be starting to put in our summer veggie seedlings over the several work parties. With nighttime temperatures finally staying above 10 degrees, and higher; these are now at reasonable levels for our tender heat loving vegetables. We will start with tomatoes and squash on June 1st, then plant zucchini, cucumbers, and basil over the following weeks.
Vegetables that thrive in cooler weather, such as peas, lettuce and other leafy greens and root crops are finally starting to put on growth.
We are still going to wait a couple of weeks to direct seed our beans, since beans need minimum nighttime temperatures of 15 degrees to ensure good germination rates.
These zucchini plants can hardly wait, they are already starting to grow flowers and you can see tiny zucchini’s starting to form.

Thank you to Urban Roots for the amazing donation of the plants!