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