From the Gardens Registrar: PARKING INFORMATION – IMPORTANT; More Fun With Sweet Potatoes; Lakeshore Nature Preserve; New Orientation Day Added; Bring In Your Plant Pots; Ask Our Garden Experts; Gardening Manual

Hello Gardeners,

PARKING – Parking for the Eagle Heights Gardens is along Eagle Heights Drive. We do not allow parking or driving in the gardens. If you have tools and equipment to bring to the garden, please park along EH Drive, go get a garden cart, and bring it to your car to unload your stuff. The entrance to the gardens is at a dangerous intersection at the top of the hill, where visibility is poor – if you drop things off by the gate, you will have to back out on to Lake Mendota Drive, where there is the real possibility that you will be hit by another vehicle, or will run into a pedestrian or bicyclist. Yes, getting a cart takes longer, but it is much safer.

SWEET POTATOES IN CONTAINERS – Two UW students have been awarded a grant for their project on building community through sweet potatoes. They will be experimenting with container-growing methods for sweet potatoes on the land used by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences (CALS) next to our community garden at Eagle Heights, and are reaching out to some community organizations as part of the project. They will attend our Seed Fair and demonstrate their designs. They will also be able to provide some 5-gallon buckets and other materials for growing sweet potatoes in containers. Look for them at the same table as the Sweet Potato Project – that’s the project that provides free sweet potato slips to gardeners who will donate half of their crop to food pantries.

LAKESHORE NATURE PRESERVE – The Eagle Heights Gardens are situated in the Lakeshore Nature Preserve, a 300-acre natural area along the south shore of Lake Mendota. Because we are part of the preserve, we require our gardeners to follow their rules. Please note that collecting or picking of plants or branches is not allowed in the Preserve. We do our best to furnish sticks for our gardeners to use for climbing plants. Please do not forage in the woods that border our gardens.

The Friends of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve will also have a table at our Seed Fair. They will be handing out informational brochures with maps, and will also have some fun activities for adults and children.

GARDEN ORIENTATIONS – We have added another garden orientation to our schedule for this weekend. We don’t require it, but we do strongly recommend that all new gardeners attend an orientation to learn some of the basics about our gardens.  This is the schedule (all orientations will start at the garden shed):

Saturday, March 30         Eagle Heights                               11:30 a.m.           Orientation in Mandarin

Saturday March 30           Eagle Heights                              12:00 Noon        Orientation in English

Sunday March 31              Eagle Heights                             12:00 Noon        Orientation in English

(NEW!)

Saturday March 30           University Houses Gardens          11:30 a.m.           Orientation in English

Sunday March 31              University Houses Gardens          1:30 p.m.             Orientation in English

Orientations will take 30 – 45 minutes or so, depending on how many people have questions. If you aren’t able to attend one of the scheduled orientations but would still like to get oriented, please let me know, and I may be able to meet you at another time to show you around.

PLANT POTS – Do you have piles of plant pots and trays taking up space in your basement, garage, dining room table, refrigerator, etc? Now’s your chance to get rid of them. Stack them up and bring them to the Seed Fair, to Room 139. We’ll have an exchange. You know they multiply over the winter – declutter, and spark joy in someone else!

GARDEN EXPERTS – And while you’re in Room 139, leaving or taking plant pots, be sure to talk to the two experienced gardeners who have agreed to answer questions for beginning gardeners. This is a great opportunity for guidance.

GARDENING MANUAL – Our website has quite a lot of information on gardening, but the very best resource is a manual written by a former gardener, Robin Mittenthal, which he put together specifically for new gardeners gardening here at Eagle Heights/University Houses. Here is a link: http://www.eagleheightsgardens.org/tips/garden_manual_v_1.12.pdf

It’s 108 pages! But if you only read the first few pages, you’ll already learn some important things. Robin really knew his stuff, so take a look at it.

Happy Gardening and see you at the Seed Fair, (which, as you recall, will be Saturday, March 30, from 9:30 – 11am, at the Eagle Heights Community Center.)

Kathryn

From the Gardens Registrar: Opening Day, Sweet Potatoes, Orientations, Mud, and Seed Fair Reminder

Hello Gardeners,

OPENING DAY – We are going to bring tools and garden carts out of the sheds later this week, and are declaring this Saturday, March 23, as our Opening Day. The parking signs along Eagle Heights Drive have been changed to allow garden parking. Portable toilets will be installed at both gardens next week, on Thursday, March 28.  Please note that most parts of both gardens are a combination of frozen and muddy. (see Time to Start? below)

SWEET POTATO PROJECT – We will have some information on this project, including a sign-up sheet and contact information, at the Seed Fair. The program provides free sweet potato slips to gardeners who will donate half of the crop to food pantries.  “The Dane County Sweet Potato project is an opportunity to grow delicious food and support your neighbors. Sweet potato slips are provided free of charge. We ask that you donate half your harvest to a local food pantry. Thank you to all who have grown sweet potatoes for the project in the past and donated their harvests back to the community to improve food security in Dane County and bring more fresh produce into food pantries. Since 2013, residents have provided over 15,000 pounds of sweet potatoes to food pantries and programs serving those in need.”

GARDEN ORIENTATIONS – We are considering adding another orientation to the schedule - Sunday, March 31 at Noon at Eagle Heights Gardens. Are there any new Eagle Heights gardeners who won’t be able to attend an orientation on Saturday, March 30, after the Seed Fair? If so, would you come to an orientation on Sunday? We won’t schedule it if there isn’t much interest, so let me know soon.

TIME TO START? – No, it’s really not, for most of us. Spring is slowly starting (finally), but much of the ground, including the garden paths, is muddy on top and frozen underneath.  The large amount of snow we got this winter came on top of an unusually wet summer; the lower plots at Eagle Heights, and much of University Houses are waterlogged. Most people should not do any work in their plots until they thaw and dry out. (Note that the gardens up on the hill at Eagle Heights are more likely to be workable at this point.) But if you feel like getting outside and getting started, this is a good time to haul leaves to your plot, and leave them in a handy pile to spread later when the soil warms up. You can haul wood chips for your plot paths, too.  

Digging when your garden is muddy is not good for the soil – it compacts it, which makes it harder for plants to send roots through it. This can cause problems for your plot and plants for the rest of the season. An easy way to find out if your plot is workable is to grab a handful of soil, and squeeze it. If it forms a loose ball that easily breaks apart, it’s ready to be dug and planted. But if you’ve got a mud pie on your hands, you’re better off waiting. I know we’re all anxious to put this endless and intense winter behind us, but please don’t play in the mud.

Happy Gardening (soon) and see you at the Seed Fair, (which, as you recall, will be Saturday, March 30, from 9:30 – 11am, at the Eagle Heights Community Center.)

Kathryn

Hello Gardeners,

Our annual Seed Fair will be held at the Eagle Heights Community Center, on Saturday, March 30, from 9:30am – 11am. This event is for our gardeners only, not for the general public. To get your seeds, you’ll give your name to the volunteers at the check-in table, they’ll look up your plot number, and then they’ll give you 15 tickets. (Note: this is 15 tickets per plot, large or small, but gardeners with two small plots will only get a total of 15 tickets.) Each ticket is good for one packet of seeds. We have lots of seeds this year:

Beans

Beets

Broccoli

Brussels Sprouts

Bunching Onions

Cabbage

Carrots

Cauliflower

Celery

Chard

Chinese Cabbage

Collards

Cucumbers

Eggplants

Assorted Greens – European and Asian

Herbs, including Basil, Dill, and Parsley

Kale

Kohlrabi

Lettuce

Melons, including Watermelons and Cantaloupes

Mustard Greens

Okra

Parsnips

Peas

Peppers – both sweet and hot varieties

Radishes

Rutabagas

Spinach

Squash – Summer, Winter, and Pumpkins

Tomatoes

Turnips

We also have a huge selection of flower seeds this year. Flower seeds are “free”, which means you don’t need tickets for them. You’ll have the opportunity to ask gardening questions of two of our very experienced gardeners, and we will be selling row cover, a type of light fabric that protects your plants from insect pests and light frost. (You’ll have other chances to buy row cover later on, if you don’t want to get it at the Seed Fair.)

If you are not able to come to the Seed Fair, but you still want free seeds, email me, and give me a list of the seeds you want. We may already be out of some things, but I’ll gather what I can for you after the Fair, and I’ll leave the seeds for you to pick up at the Community Center.

SEED FAIR VOLUNTEERS – We already have most of the volunteers we need for the Seed Fair, but we could still use a few more people who are bilingual – English/Mandarin or English/Korean. Volunteers will need to report to the Community Center at 8am on March 30 to set up for the Fair, and should commit to staying as late as Noon to clean up. (We’ll probably be done more like 11:30.) Working at the Seed Fair constitutes a workday. It’s fun, but it’s an extremely busy, tiring morning.

GARDEN ORIENTATIONS – We strongly recommend that all new gardeners attend an orientation to learn some of the basics about our gardens, and have an opportunity to ask questions.  We have the following orientations planned for Seed Fair weekend. All orientations will start at the garden shed:

Saturday, March 30    Eagle Heights                          11:30 a.m.       Orientation in Mandarin

Saturday March 30     Eagle Heights                          12:00 Noon      Orientation in English

Saturday March 30     University Houses Gardens     11:30 a.m.       Orientation in English

Sunday March 31        University Houses Gardens     1:30 p.m.         Orientation in English

Orientations will take 30 – 45 minutes or so, depending on how many people have questions. If you aren’t able to attend one of the scheduled orientations but would still like to get oriented, please let me know, and I may be able to meet you at another time to show you around.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Gardening (soon, we hope),

Kathryn