From the Gardens Registrar: Warm Weather Plant Sale on Sunday; It’s Not Time to Plant Corn; Garden Juries; Seed Information; About the Plant Give-Away Last Sunday; Goodbye

 Hello Gardeners, 

 WARM WEATHER PLANT SALE - Scott Williams of Garden To Be will be selling warm weather plants at Eagle Heights on Sunday, May 23, from 10am – 1pm. He will be bringing basil (5 varieties), cilantro, lettuce, salad mix packs, edible flowers, cucumbers, zucchini and summer squash, pumpkins, melons, winter squash, eggplants, and peppers – both sweet and hot. Tomatoes are still iffy. Please wear masks and social distance.

IT’S NOT TIME TO PLANT CORN – Why not? Because it’s never time to plant corn at Eagle Heights. We don’t prohibit it, but we don’t encourage it. The reason is that it doesn’t grow well in our gardens, and it attracts raccoons. (As if we need to attract more vegetable-eating mammals.) It tends to fall over and get in other people’s way, it takes up space, and most people I’ve talked to who’ve grown it got very little to eat out of it. I love corn on the cob too, but in our garden, it’s just a nuisance.

 GARDEN JURIES – We will be starting Garden Juries at both gardens in June. Garden juries are groups of gardeners who meet to look at garden plots together, and notify the registrar about plots they find that are very weedy or look abandoned. They can also report particularly well-maintained gardens. Each jury has three gardeners, is issued a specific group of plots to look at, and will set their own schedules for their three inspections – one each in June, July, and August. There will be five juries at Eagle Heights, and one jury will handle University Houses. The total amount of time equals about 3 hours, and jurying constitutes a workday. The reason we have these juries is that poorly-managed plots spread weeds to their neighbors. Also, if a plot turns out to have been abandoned, we want to know that as soon as possible, so it can be assigned to a new gardener. And it isn’t always bad for the gardener to be reported on – sometimes, it turns out the gardener needs help, and we can provide that. Gardeners who served on a jury last year can not apply this time, since they do not need to do a workday this year. Also, we want to extend the opportunity to new people. We will need 18 volunteers altogether. Because this is such a popular way to do a workday, we will take names for the next two weeks, until June 1. At that point, if we have more volunteers than we can use, we’ll draw names out of a hat!

 SEED STUFF – The bean seeds are all gone, and so are most of the flower seeds. We have lots of seeds for summer and winter squash, pumpkins, cucumbers, and melons. We’ll keep bringing seeds out to the share shelves at both gardens for the next few weeks. Gourds, anyone? We’ve got lots and lots of seeds for gourds. Sure, they’re useless and take up a lot of space, but you can store your radishes in them.

 PLANT GIVE-AWAY LAST SUNDAY – The people delivering the free plants last Sunday had more than 1000 plants to distribute at a number of locations, and were not able to get to Eagle Heights until 11am. I had been told the plants would arrive between 9:00 and 10:00, and I know that gardeners started lining up at 9:00, and many waited more than an hour before giving up. It was chilly besides. I’m so sorry that the delivery was delayed, and people who had waited so long weren’t able to get plants. Many thanks to our Co-Chair, Ninja, for waiting with these gardeners and trying to help.

 GOODBYE – Goodbye, gardeners. Be happy and well. Be excellent to each other. And don’t put your &^%$@! fences up on your (^#@! plot borders!

 

Happy Gardening, 

Kathryn