It's Planting Time! (Finally!)

Traditionally, in this region of southern Ontario, you want to try to have your first round of plants in the ground in and around May 24th. This year has been particularly rainy thusfar, and the tricky thing about community gardens is that unlike traditional agriculture, most workers are volunteer based and can only manage working at the garden part time. These two factors have postponed our abilities to do significant planting here at the Lakeshore garden. Until NOW!

With the help of one of the grade 11 classes who braved the impending rain this past Thursday, we were able to plant much of the garden with peas, carrots, beets, lettuce, arugula, spinach, turnip, celery and kholrabi, all within a 2 hour window! Impressive!

Many people feel that if it's raining, or has been raining, then there's no way to get anything productive done in the garden. This is true only if you have a garden prone to getting severely muddy, in which case you can add drainage systems to ensure that when the soil dries, it does not become hard and therefore difficult for plants to thrive in.

Wet soil can actually be a great help in pulling out weeds that will be looser by the porous soil, and likewise can make for easy planting.

The only time you want to stay out of your garden/fields when it's wet is when you have plants that are prone to transfering disease, such as tomatoes or strawberries. It is important not to brush up against these plants or touch them when its wet, because you could then spread any potential diseases they may have onto your other plants. Not so great.

Tips of the Day: Mulching without cardboard isn't Mulching at all/When to start Hoeing

Tip #1: Sooo, a quick tip on the "learning opportunity" I recieved this week. Thanks to Bianca, one of the dedicated teachers at Lakeshore Collegiate, we were able to get a LOT of beautiful pine mulch donated to us at our site. Being so excited to be surrounded by the scent of pine all through the garden, I thought to myself "Hey, I can probably just mulch REALLY thick, and won't need to lay down cardboard first!"

WRONG:


In fact, all I was doing was creating protection from the cold nights for my very thankful ARMY OF DANDILIONS. They just keep coming!

So yesterday, I salvaged a bunch of cardboard from my local Shoppers Drugmart around the corner, and will have to lay down cardboard on all the paths I've already mulched. SAVE YOURSELF THE SAME FATE FRIEND! GET YO' CARDBOARD DOWNNNNN!

Tip #2: You may ask yourself "when is the best time to hoe my beds?" and to that I will answer " NOW! DO IT NOW! FOR THE LOVE OF PIE!" "Now" meaning a few weeks after you've already created your beds, and the first teeny tiny signs of weed life have started to spring up out of it (pictured below). Hoeing lightly along the top of the soil and exposing the teeny tiny roots of these soon-to-be monster weeds will save you
HOURS OF TIME!

Lakeshore Collegiate and PACT: an Urban Farming Adventure

Hi there! My name's Natalie and I've created this blog to keep friends and community members up to date on all the fun, interesting and challenging things happening at Lakeshore Collegiate's community garden.

This garden is run through an organization called PACT, which, among other things, has created a series of organic learning gardens on 6 high school properties in "at risk" neighbourhoods across the GTA. Our aim is to teach youth how to grow their own food, learn about nutrition, and provide healthy, affordable food to the surrounding community.

All food grown through our PACT program sites will be delivered to the local food banks in each area! (can't get more affordable than FREE!)

Working with staff and students from the host school, as well as nutrition and education students from Ryerson and OISE, our gardens are already facilitating a variety of projects and learning opportunities.

Stay posted for all the goings-on as the season progresses!

Happy Farming!

Natalie