From the Gardens Registrar: Thefts; Flea Beetles; Tomatoes; Leave Those Bricks Alone; The Virus

Hello Gardeners,

THEFTS – Theft is fairly common in our gardens, unfortunately. Our gardens are wide open and unguarded. I’ve had a number of plants stolen over the years, so I can easily sympathize with gardeners who’ve been targeted by thieves. But this year, I’m getting many more reports than usual, especially so early in the season – gardeners have lost decorations, plants, vegetables, and even a bicycle. I believe that the thieves are (usually) not fellow-gardeners, but non-gardeners who don’t mind helping themselves to whatever looks good in our gardens when they think they can get away with it.

There are a few things everybody can do. For instance, it’s helpful to get to know your garden neighbors, if possible, so that you can recognize when somebody is in a plot where they don’t belong. I wouldn’t encourage you to confront somebody you suspect is stealing, but just watching them, and letting them know you’re watching them, can sometimes make them stop what they’re doing. Also, our neighborhood UW Police Officer  will be stopping in on a regular basis, just to establish a presence. If you do have something stolen, please send me an email. It will make me unhappy, but I need to know.

By the way, the stolen bike is a black MOUNTAIN bike 26'' sidewinder, with property tags from University Houses and Eagle Heights Apartments. Let me know if you’ve seen this bike or know anything about its theft.

FLEA BEETLES – If your vegetable leaves suddenly have lots of tiny holes in them, you probably have flea beetles. These insects appear in the spring, and eat the leaves of greens of all sorts, cabbage relatives, eggplants, and others. Their favorite vegetable is radishes. In general, they damage plants but don’t kill them, and once plants are bigger, and the beetle population dies down in the summer, your plants won’t be bothered by them. But they can definitely ruin the leaves we want to eat. Row covers are the best protection against them, but you can also make a simple soap spray to kill them. Here’s an article with a lot of information: https://getbusygardening.com/controlling-flea-beetles/

TOMATOES – Tomatoes are many home gardeners’ favorite vegetable, since they taste so much better when you grow them yourself. This is a good time to plant tomatoes – we should be free from frost now. There are many kinds of tomatoes (more than 15,000 varieties), and gardeners love to argue about which ones are best. (I think highly of Juliets, myself.) Here’s an article which explains the difference between determinate and indeterminate tomatoes, suggests some popular varieties, and explains how to plant and care for them: https://www.almanac.com/plant/tomatoes

PLEASE DON’T TAKE THOSE BRICKS – We have a pile of bricks and blocks at Eagle Heights which we plan to use for a project to shore up the 900 row. We had planned to do this project in May, but we can’t get it done until the virus lets up and we can have work crews again. In the meantime, please do not take any of these bricks and blocks for your own plot. If you have taken some, please bring them back. And by the way, bricks are not a good idea in garden plots because they sink, and eventually become buried and difficult to remove. (I’ve got bricks buried in my plot, and they’re a pain to try to weed around.)

THE VIRUS – The primary means of transmission of the coronavirus is person-to-person. So, as always, keep your distance from other people when you’re in the gardens. Don’t touch your face. Wash your hands with soap. (There’s soap at both gardens.) The virus is not transmitted as readily outside as inside, and warm humid weather also slows transmission slightly. But the risk is far from over. I don’t think masks are necessary outside, but by all means, wear one if you think it’s appropriate. It’s considerate, since it protects other people from your germs, if you’ve got any.

Happy Gardening, and Stay Safe,  

Kathryn

From the Gardens Registrar: Coronavirus Reminder; Workdays; Garden Juries; Beans; Rhubarb

Hello Gardeners,

CORONAVIRUS  – This virus will be around for many months, and could easily flare up. So don’t get careless. It is as important as before to continue social distancing and washing your hands with soap and water. And don’t come to the gardens if you’re feeling sick.

WORKDAYS – We require our gardeners to do one  three-hour workshift during the garden season. Some gardeners prefer to pay a fee rather than work, but we prefer the labor – it benefits the gardens directly, is an opportunity for gardeners to meet other gardeners, and gives people a sense of being part of the garden community. To say nothing of the marvelous opportunity to get sunburned, mosquito-bitten, callused, sore, and muddy.

Projects can include clearing and weeding paths, moving weeds in the weed pile, painting tools, trimming bushes, and so on. At this time, due to the coronavirus, we are not able to have workdays. It’s possible that will change some time this summer, but we can’t predict if or when. In the meantime, we are trying to identify useful garden projects that could be worked on safely by one or two people at a time. Do you have any ideas? Would you like to do such a project? If so, please send us your  ideas via this cool Google Doc, created by one of our computer wizards: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScal4eXhAKGAi47l7Dq20hc9hx7U9lSiKlvAEmhLgxXvkvS2g/viewform

Also, we have some common areas in the gardens that could use a few hours of attention from volunteers. Plus we’ve been asked to help this year with a garden at the Eagle Heights Community Center – their childcare center, Eagle’s Wing, has a garden. Please let me know if you’re interested in helping with one of these projects, and I can give you more details.

GARDEN JURIES – We will be starting Garden Juries in June, and we’re looking for 6 volunteers at Eagle Heights. Garden juries are groups of gardeners who meet to look at garden plots together. They hope to see only beautiful, well-maintained gardens, and they will see many of those, especially this year, but they’re really on the lookout for plots that are very weedy and messy. After a jury meets, they send me their notes, and I contact the owners of the problem gardens. Some gardeners are able to improve their plots; other gardeners realize they don’t really want to garden any more, and their plots are assigned to new gardeners. The reason we have juries is that poorly-managed garden plots spread weeds to neighboring plots. What you do (or don’t do) in your own plot does affect your garden neighbors.

Each jury is responsible for one section of the garden. The jurors inspect their section three times over the summer - in June, July, and August. Each jury sets their own schedule. The total amount of time should about equal three hours, and it’s a workday equivalent. The areas at Eagle Heights are 100’s – 300’s, 500’s – 700’s, 800’s – 1000’s, and 1100’s – 1300’s. We’ll need 12 people altogether, and we already have 6. At University Houses Gardens, the three jurors from previous years will continue this year.

BEANS – It’s time now to plant beans. It’s still early – beans germinate best when the soil is warm. Beans grow in one of two ways – they make two-foot tall plants (bush beans); or they grow tendrils/runners, and need support from poles, trellises, or strings (pole beans.) Here’s some general information on growing them: https://www.almanac.com/plant/beans

RHUBARB – Rhubarb is really a vegetable, but it’s treated as a fruit. It’s very sour, so it’s generally cooked with a lot of sugar. Except for all that sugar, it’s pretty healthy, and  it’s satisfying to harvest and eat the first fresh produce of the season. When you harvest, just take home the stalks – the leaves are poisonous. (Leave them next to the plant, where they’ll act as mulch to keep down weeds.) Rhubarb is good in pie, cakes, crisps, sauces, mixed with fruits, etc. Here’s some information, with links to recipes: https://www.thekitchn.com/rhubarb-tips-257870

Happy Gardening, and Stay Safe,  

Kathryn

From the Gardens Registrar: The Usual Coronavirus Reminder; Warm Weather Plant Delivery; Discouraged Plants; More Seeds Coming; Recycle Your Plant Pots; Roster Posted; Found Cowl

Hello Gardeners,

CORONAVIRUS  – Our lives are opening up now a little, but this virus will be around for many months, and could easily flare up. So don’t get careless. It is as important as before to continue social distancing and washing your hands with soap and water. And don’t come to the gardens if you’re feeling sick.

WARM WEATHER PLANT DELIVERY – This Sunday, May 17, Garden to Be will be delivering the warm weather plants that gardeners have ordered.  Pick-up, near the Eagle Heights shed, will be from 9am – 11am. (Your receipt from Scott may contain different times or dates, but please ignore that – there is some wrong information going out from his computer system, and he can’t change it. The correct times are 9am – 11am.)  Please come pick up your plants, or get a friend to do it for you - there will be a great many plants and we will not be able to hold any past 11:00a.m.. Any plants not picked up by that time will be delivered to garden plots.

MINT, COMFREY, ARTEMISIA, CORN – What do these plants have in common? We don’t want you to plant them, that’s what. The first three are major weeds in the gardens, and spread like crazy. This is not to say they’re bad; MINT is a wonderful seasoning. But the plant is very aggressive. It’s hard to have just a little of it in your plot. If you want to grow mint, one good way to contain it is to plant it in a pot. That will keep the roots from spreading. Gardeners sometimes ask if it’s okay to plant other herbs in the mint family - basil, thyme, lavender, oregano, marjoram, rosemary, sage, savory, and  hyssop are all in this family. Yes, you can plant any of these; oregano is aggressive too, but not as much as mint. COMFREY  is another plant that grows wild in our gardens. It is an herb that has some medicinal uses, and it has very pretty flowers in the late spring. But it has deep roots and is very difficult to get rid of, if it’s in your way. It’s not all bad, though – the leaves are full of nitrogen, and they decompose quickly, so you can cut leaves and put them around your plants to serve as green manure. ARTEMISIA is a big plant family – the species we have most of in our gardens is artemesia annua, which is also called Sweet Annie, for its sweet (and somewhat cloying) smell. It has traditionally been used in Chinese medicine to reduce fevers, and has even been studied as a treatment for COVID 19. However, again, this plant really takes over, and the smell can get on your nerves. Growing CORN is not prohibited in the gardens, but we don’t encourage it. It doesn’t do well in our gardens, and it attracts animal pests, such as raccoons. It’s true that our cranes also enjoy eating corn, but we have lots of other things for them to eat.

MORE SEEDS COMING TO THE SHARE SHELVES – It’s almost time to plant beans and warm weather crops, such as summer and winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, and melons. These seeds, plus a great many flower seeds, will be appearing on the share shelves at both gardens by the end of the week.

PLANT POTS – If you’ve bought vegetable and flower plants for your garden plot, you can throw the empty pots in the dumpster. But if the pots and trays are still in good shape, remember that you can put them on the share shelves and let other gardeners re-use them.

2020 ROSTER – The current gardener roster has been posted on our website.

FOUND AT THE GARDENS – ONE NAVY BLUE AND WHITE HAND-KNITTED COWL WITH CHEVRON PATTERN   - If you’ve lost this, please let me know, and I’ll make arrangements to return it to you.

Happy Gardening, and Stay Safe,  

Kathryn

From the Gardens Registrar: The Usual Coronavirus Reminder; Warm Weather Plant Delivery – Volunteers Needed; Gardens Are Full; Seeds Are Being Liberated; What To Plant Now

Hello Gardeners,

CORONAVIRUS  – Please continue social distancing and washing your hands with soap and water. Bring your own tools if possible; otherwise, wash tool and cart handles before and after you use them, and/or use garden gloves. And don’t come to the gardens if you’re feeling sick. I know, yadda yadda yadda, but this pandemic is still far from over, and we want everybody in our gardens to be safe.

WARM WEATHER PLANT DELIVERY – If you have ordered warm-weather plants (such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc.) from Garden to Be, your plants will be delivered on Sunday, May 17.  Pick-up, near the Eagle Heights shed, will be from 9am – 11am. (Your receipt from Scott may contain different times or dates, but please ignore that – there is some wrong information going out from his computer system, and he can’t change it. The correct times are 9am – 11am.)  Please come pick up your plants, or get a friend to do it for you - there will be a great many plants and we will not be able to hold any past 11:00. Any plants not picked up by that time will be delivered to garden plots. And if you haven’t ordered yet, I believe Scott has taken down the link – he told me he was running out of plants to sell.

WARM WEATHER PLANT DELIVERY VOLUNTEERS NEEDED – We are going to need 3 more volunteers to help with the plant delivery and distribution. Volunteers must report by 8am to help unload the truck, organize the plants, and assist gardeners to pick them up. We will keep up our social distancing, but I recommend that volunteers wear masks. You will also need to be able to stay until 11am. This constitutes a work day. Please let me know if you’re interested.

GARDENS ARE FULL – Both Eagle Heights and University Houses Gardens are full now. We have started a waiting list for plots. Since every plot now has a gardener, do not assume that any plot that looks neglected to you is empty or abandoned. As always, nobody should go into anybody else’s plot without permission, or take anything from anybody else’s plot.

Also, if you have realized that you will not be able to take care of your garden this year and want to give it up, please let me know as soon as possible. I may still be able to get you a refund, and also, there will probably be somebody who would be delighted to take over your garden.

SEEDS ARE COMING! – We now have permission to bring our garden seeds out of the Community Center to donate to gardeners. The seeds will start to appear at the share shelves at both gardens this Friday, and will continue to be brought until they are used up, or gardeners seem to lose interest. We have a lot of seeds! Flowers, lettuce, radishes, beans, peas, cucumbers, summer and winter squash, pumpkins, and melons. We do not have any more spinach, chard, kale, herbs, or greens. And it is now too late to start tomatoes, peppers, or eggplants from seed, so we won’t give those out.

WHAT TO PLANT NOW – Although we have had some warm, summer-like weather, it is too early to plant out tomatoes, or any plants that can be damaged by frost. It is also too early to plant beans – they are not likely to germinate if the soil is cooler than 60 degrees. However, you can still plant cool-weather vegetables, such as lettuce, radishes, beets, turnips, peas, cabbage family members, etc. We can expect frost at night a few times in the next couple of weeks, but it will probably be safe to plant tomato plants by May 15. Keep an eye on the weather forecasts, and be prepared to cover your tomatoes if the temperatures might dip. After May 15, it should be safe to plant beans, cucumbers, and squash, though these will grow faster and better when the temperatures get higher.

Happy Gardening, and Stay Safe,  

Kathryn