Seeds

Yay! Finally, it was time to plant our seeds.

A bunch of us met again on Monday evening at 6:30 to get started on the entire reason for this whole process - to grow veggies. And since you reap what you sow, it's rather obvious how important this "step #3" is.

Thank you once again to Treehouse for buying a ton of stuff for us - garden toys for the kiddies, gardening gloves, watering cans, soil, and seeds galore! We got to choose from green beans, wax beans, carrot, spinach, a bunch of lettuce types, radish, turnip, turnip greens, beets, onions, etc.

Michelle was able to bring Brody with her this time and he was a great helper getting water from the rec building.








































Iona came out to check on her little garden box and helped us all out.





















I personally decided to plant onions, carrot, spinach, green beans, and a bunch of different types of lettuce. Sarah was such a great little helper. She actually put in about half of the onion sets herself. I would make the little hole and then she would drop the seed in. The only thing is I can't guarantee is that the little onions weren't put in upside down - oops! And then she helped water, mostly I suspect because she loves to play with water.





















But really the point is that this is such a great experience for all of our children. They just so enjoy getting outside and you can really tell how valued they feel when we take the time to allow them to share in the "adult" things we do. Little Emily, for example, was very adamant about planting Swiss Chard with the help of her Mom and Poppy and made certain to let everyone know the very important spot in which it was planted. What a fantastic learning experience!


Thank you to Doug Halfyard for giving Paula a bucket of seed potatoes. With the help of Mr. Eldon King, Paula used most of her plot to set potatoes for her family. Mr. King had some great tips since he's a seasoned gardener and, though now retired, still has that undeniable ability to teach. You can't really notice in the photo but the potato rows have a seed every 8 inches or so with a bunch of kelp in between for fertilizer.
















One of the ladies just looked around at one point and said, "Wow! Just imagine how far we've come in 2 weeks." Our garden was an empty grassy space a short time ago and after lots of hard work, we are now well on our way to a harvest. And we had lots of rain last night and this morning, so let's hope those tiny little seeds are germination to their hearts content and making us proud!

I like this quote - kinda about how we have to wait for our seeds to sprout because WE never know what the yield will be.

Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed. Robert H. Schuller


I will be away for a few days, back next Monday, and I will post upon my return.

Happy Gardening!

Compost and Peat Moss

Some of us were able to meet again on Saturday morning at 10am to start step#2 in our gardening process.

Lynn & Phillip
Paula, Samantha, & Hailey
Melissa
and Moi

And please take my "step #'s" with very loose interpretation as there are many other little steps in between my own personal visits where Paula may go down to the garden to water, Iona tends her own little "garden box" on the side, and Lisa, Tony, and some of the others head down on their own because they were unable to attend as a group.

First things first and Samantha and I measured out each garden plot for the individual families with 7 in total each measuring 22 ft long by 7 ft wide with a 1 ft trench in between. And then we all began digging the separating trenches. (I'm not sure if trenches is the correct word to use here but you get the idea).

After separating the individual beds we then worked at adding a bag each of compost material and peat moss for added nutritional value to our somewhat pathetic soil. And after some elbow grease and lots of shoveling and raking, that was all mixed in and our gardens looked SO much better already.

Next, the ladies decided how they wanted to separate their plots - most of us choosing 5 smaller beds within that plot, some choosing to do one large bed of potatoes, some choosing to do 2 long beds, etc. I'm not sure there are any rules here and we are all doing whatever we feel best for the needs of our families.

Unfortunately I had to leave at this point for a prior engagement so I have to give a big shout-out to Paula's daughter, Samantha, for taking over in my section and dividing my plot for me. That was super awesome of you, Samantha, I really appreciate it!

There's already at least one section that has been designated for the "community" and Paula took the time to get the pumpkins seedlings started there. They already look lovely! And I think (correct me if I'm wrong, ladies and gents) that there is still a big potato garden for the group in the works on that space where there is currently a huge pile of dirt to be spread out :) Potatoes -yum!

I'm told everyone worked away in the sun and the flies until close to 1:30 Saturday afternoon...wow! This really is a lot of work and takes a great deal of time and devotion. I'm very thankful to have Paula's guidance and dedication and am very excited to be a part of this effort. We know the hard work will pay off in the end when we see our beautiful veggies.

And that, my friends, brings me to our next meeting, when we actually get to plant our little seeds! Hip Hip Hooray!

And a quote suitable to the amount of time gardening requires...
"In order to live off a garden, you practically have to live in it.- Frank McKinney Hubbard



NOTE: I have to apologize for the lack of photos - I have lots and have been trying but blogger will not allow me to post them for some reason. Will try and fix this as soon as I can.

Welcome

Thanks for joining us as we venture into the unknown. This is the first year of our community garden project and we have a lot of learning to do.

Just last week the land being used for our garden, located behind the recreation center in Birchy Head, was "turned" (Thanks to Pike's excavator) giving us a good sized space to work with. A truckload of topsoil was delivered to the site as well.

And so we begin the first steps to prepare our garden for planting. And yes, we have the blisters to prove our hard work - particularly those of us who forgot our garden gloves - I told you we have a lot to learn!

We met on Tuesday night, June 16th at 6:30 to start raking the rocks away from our ground -and we no longer have to question why Newfoundland is nicknamed "the Rock" for any of us who may have been wondering! Eek!














And then we began shoveling the dark topsoil along the middle. This will be the section for individual family planting lots and will give everyone a chance to sow the seeds they feel most suited for their individual needs. The outside sections will be used for communal potato and pumpkin gardens for all the families to share.














I want to give a special shout out to Michelle Harris, our local "Booky The Bear" (Family Resource Center) co-ordinator. And to our faithful leader, Paula Alexander, for putting herself up as our patient teacher of all things veggie garden related. Paula keeps her own gardens - that girl sure knows her stuff - and even had a good chuckle at my expense for the way I was using my garden rake. Who knew? Thanks Paula!

Currently, there are 7 or 8 families who will be joining our community garden adventure.

Thanks to the families who were able to come out and help with Step #1:

Paula & Hailey
Michelle
Melissa
Lisa & Kristi
Tony, Stephanie, Emily, & Aaron
Lynn & Phillip
Ed & Iona
and yours truly, Myrna, and my little one, Sarah

Next time, we'll be fertilizing with all things organic - bucket loads of kelp that Paula and her daughter, Hailey, gathered from the beach, and possibly some caplin (apparantly, they're "rolling" now).

I'll leave you with a quote that seems appropriate as we take this step towards helping the families in our communities:

The happiness of any society begins with the well being of the families that live in it. -– Kofi Annan