Strawberry Tea - Recap

A bright and warm day for our event! Many people came by and visited all of our various booths.  For activities, we have UBC volunteers that prepared a DIY seed paper workshop. Kids and adults all got to create a card filled with wildflower seeds and take them home! Master Gardener Selina Pope hosted the pollinator plants table filled with seeds of all shapes and sizes. Many people took some home with a hopeful promise of a low maintenance flower bed for the next year. We also had the compost game set up for people who wanted to learn more about composting at home. Madame Beespeaker surprised everyone with a lavish Queen Bee outfit. She gave a very educational and interesting talk about the uniqueness of the bee species we have in BC. Everyone listened intently the whole way through. After that, kids followed the beespeaker around with nets and jars, hoping to catch and observe a bee up close. 

The people that came by also walked away with a delicious homemade strawberry cream filled biscuit along with a few strawberry and mint plants. In case you missed this awesome event, always check out our event calendar to see what else is coming up!

Wenwen

Guided Work Party - June 29th

A lovely overcast day for some gardening and interviewing! 

Reporters from CBC wished to do a story on the food insecurity issue in BC and highlight how our garden and the food distribution program is trying to combat that. Art and Amy spoke about their own experiences with the garden, 6 years in. We hope to see it air soon!

Shauna came back to continue the work on the irrigation system, replacing the lines to another type that has emitters closer together. A team of 4 worked on weeding the last two beds, meticulously removing the grasses, spent forget-me-nots and other weeds but keeping the baby borage and calendula for the pollinators. A few heads of asian greens were harvested as they are starting to bolt and are shading the cucumber seedlings. The snap peas were also harvested before they became buried further beneath the crazy growing activity that is going on. 

Sadly the aphids came right back onto the broad beans and are starting to go for the beans themselves. BUT this time I noticed numerous pairs of ladybugs mating away. Although they are temporarily distracted right now, it is still a good sign. 

Wenwen

Amy being interviewed by the film crew.

Weeding along.

Harvesting pac choi!

Changing the irrigation lines.

Guided Work Party - June 26th

Woo! It’s finally starting to feel like Summer. The temperature is getting to high 20s, so we pulled out the rotating sprinkler to water the rewilder garden beds and also to cool off the hardworking volunteers. The compost reached 27 Celsius yet again. New recruit Hugo helped with stirring the compost and adding some more chopped up ingredients. 

The broad beans from the citizen seed trial were under review for germination as it has been 2 weeks since we seeded them. We wanted to compare the effects of potting mix on germination by seeding half of the plot on a bed of potting mix and the other half without. Interestingly, it appears that the potting mix does give a boost to the seedlings and germinates better!

We harvested a few more garlic scapes, broccoli heads, as well as a variety of salad green as they are beginning to bolt in this heat. The Strawberry Tea event was right after the work party, so the volunteers were able to get a delicious lunch made by Cat Poppins.

Wenwen

A shade cloth was added to the vertical garden to protect the sensitive lettuce greens from the heat.

Runner beans are showing up.

The two rows on the right side are seeded with a layer of potting mix. You can visually see a difference!

Adding more materials to the compost.

Guided Work Party - June 22nd

We gathered a lot of lettuce and arugula which was shared out.  New volunteer Jasmine helped stir the compost which again reached an impressive 27C, showing that we are almost achieving hot composting!

Selina led a group weeding the Orchard area, and Angela led a group weeding the blueberry and strawberry areas. There is lots of weeding to do during this season!

New irrigation expert Shauna assessed the current drip irrigation set-up and replaced some of the lines with more frequent emitters; she hopes to finish this work on Sunday.

Discussing the additional drip irrigation lines with Shauna.

A busy bee with full pollen sacks. Cute!


Weeding the orchards.

Weeding the blueberry shrubs.