More completed, More to do!

Although the day was supposed to be warm and skies fairly clear today, I find myself driven into the house by a sudden intense storm-- This is pretty characteristic of the unpredictable weather we've dealt with day to day. 

Luckily, I have a lot to blog about!

Sean and I are very excited about the cold frames that we put together last week, which will help extend the growing season come fall and even winter.  The cold frame came in a kit from Gardener's Supply Company, the same company that we got our raised beds from.  I find their kits to be of good quality and pretty simple to assemble.

The construction of the cold frames was generally easy, although the instruction sheet was lacking in pictures so we had to look a few up.  We made two of them and were impressed at how handsome they are, take a look.  

Starting out-we pulled out all the pieces and made sure we had everything

Sean working on cold frame #1

Look, it even has a little wood piece for an easy-up

Complete!  get yours @ http://www.gardeners.com/

As Sean said on the last post, the weather has boosted growth in both our plants and the weeds, so the majority of our hours are consumed by weeding, mowing, and also more planting.  It's quite exciting watching our garden really come to life and it makes me more determined to keep it looking healthy and weed-free. 

What we have ready now:  Blueberries & raspberries (a few are ready), red lettuce, cilantro, and garlic!
What are we doing with them: Picking some of the berries and waiting on the rest to ripen, Campus Kitchens will be harvesting our cilantro and lettuce for their weekly dinners, and we will harvest the garlic this week! 

We can tell that that the garlic is ready because the plant has sprung up and the bottom older leaves have begun to turn yellow.  Tomorrow (given decent weather!) we will dig up the bulbs, wash them, and leave them to dry on newspaper in the house.  I'll get some photos of the garlic once we've done this, I can't wait to see all of it!

-MORE TO DO
Yesterday we met with Carrie and, after realizing that there are only a few weeks left, we filled in our July calender with plans of what we'd like to complete.

Here's a photo of our June and July calenders, including planting dates and odd jobs

A few things to highlight are; all the planting that we did in the beginning of June, which we can expect a harvest from late July- late August, the harvesting of garlic that we have planned for this week and next, and the higher priority odd jobs under the July calender--

               it reads "Door (to construct for the shed) Handrails (to construct for the bridge) Weedwhack the Seed to Table area (an abandoned garden just beside ours that students started last year) and Plan poster (a final wrap up that will include our work with GardenShare)

Whew, I'm tired already!  Although, these are all exciting projects and I'm interested to see how it all pans out

If your curious about our most recent work with GardenShare, we've been involved with weekly meetings with the director, Aviva, and another intern, Laura, to help prepare for the 2013 Food Day Youth Summit.  Sean and I are compiling "tool kits" that will be handed out to the various attending high schools at the event and will inform students on everything from starting a school club to how to run a taste test.  To learn about what this Food Day Youth Summit is all about, click here.

I will also be attending the Farmer's Market in Canton and Potsdam this weekend to help run a rapid assessment market survey on attending community members.  It's exactly what it sounds like- we will be surveying market-goers on 4 quick questions and assessing their answers to find strengths and weaknesses of the market. 

This it going to be a very interesting experience and I am looking forward to seeing the results.  I'm sure that the assessment will give me a lot of material to include on the final poster about my research with GardenShare, which I will be able to share with my peers later on.  

Well, I think I'm all caught up now!

Happy Wednesday, I hope your day has better weather than ours

-Sheila

 

Back at the Garden

After the long weekend for Independence Day, we spent Monday thoroughly pulling weeds to keep the garden under control.  We have seen huge and rapid growth in a very short time span quite recently, and it is looking to be a great harvest later this summer and fall!  Here are some photos of the garden at the end of the day.

 Flowers growing well

 Our raised beds, weed free and growing strong

 The potatoes have become quite large

 A close up of the potatoes

 The end of the potato bed, with new potatoes, peas, and tomatoes

 The garlic bed, without weeds and with a new layer of hay

 The beans we planted just last week already sprouting

 "Vermont Cranberry Dry Beans"

 Our carrot bed with a fresh layer of hay to keep the weeds down

 The corn bed is now connected to the tomato and pea fences to control weeds

 The peas looking strong

 A tomato plant

 The pea and tomato fences

 Some of our blueberries have turned blue!

Almost ready to pick!

~Sean

Halfway Update

This garden has come a long way in the weeks we have been here.  From our original list of tasks, we have:

• Reclaimed several beds
• Redone a few paths
• Planted tomatoes, peas, beets, sunflowers, borage, corn, and many others
• Finished all the GardenShare donation letters
• Built 3 new raised beds, and we will soon be assembling more cold frames that we ordered
• Connected with Campus Kitchens and donated cilantro and lettuce
• Researched greenhouses, yurts and seed-saving
• Continually weeded and watered our beds and mowed the garden
• Maintained our compost bin with grass clippings, coffee, and food scraps
• Created new trails to the Opportunities sculpture and the Protest Tree and bridge
• Wrote tool kits for GardenShare, practical how-to guides for them to hand out to participants at their food day youth summit, on composting and starting a garden club at local high schools
• Thoroughly weeded out the overrun blueberry and garlic beds

The garden is looking great, and is well on its way to a bountiful harvest later this summer and fall!

~Sean

PlantPlantPlant!

Happy Monday! 

We had a lot of fun things going on in the garden today, as our big focus is getting space cleared and putting things in the ground. 

Most of the morning was spent loosening up the soil and pulling weeds.  The area between the garlic and pea/tomato beds was cleared up and ready for planting.  In that space we now have 6 rows of carrots and 2 rows of beans. 

What we'd really like to do is turn over most of the grass surrounding the current beds because it will not only make more space for planting, but also lessen the chance of weeds and grasses moving in on the beds.
Less weeds around the beds= Less weeds infiltrating the beds!  I mean, weeding out a bed can be nice... but it sure is a lot of work

Since we harvested the last of the lettuce last week and gave it to campus kitchens, I planted some beets it their place.

Long rows of carrots
3 types (left to right): Yellow, Bolero, Nectar

The tomatoes are looking good and got re mulched to keep the weeds off

Sean doing some mowing around the property

Who knew that in the midst of all those weeds was a few asparagus plants!

Here is a photo of some borage that we found had self-seeded.  I had never seen borage before and was stunned by it's very different blue color

It's great to see the garden in bloom and with freshly turned beds.  I don't think that our corn will be knee high by the forth of July... but I saw today that our raspberries are looking ripe-- I'll take it!

-Sheila

This week has been pretty different because of the intensive heat and humidity.  While the plants have been enjoying the sun, there is an increased need for weeding and watering.  So most of the time was spent pulling weeds and turning beds, while intermittently working on our projects for garden share.


Here are some photos from this week

These flowers sprung up over the weekend 

We finished turning our second bed, which used to be used for potatoes, and were able to get some new seeds in this week!

Moving forward, top priority is getting things planted so we can have a bountiful harvest.  However, everything is quite weather dependent!  I was going to plant a few rows of carrots and beets today in other beds that we've done work on- but the rain is a hinderance.  :(  At least the rain will be nice for the plants that were looking a but dry.  Carrots and beets will just have to wait a few days.

-Sheila

Finally- A tour!

I thought I'd be nice to give a clear visual of where everything is in the garden, so I put my most tech-savvy foot forward and make a video tour.  It may be a bit small, but hopefully it's helpful!

New Trail

On Sunday the trail from the driveway down to the brook (where it goes over the bridge and connects with another trail leading back to campus) was finally finished!  Here are some pictures of the finished project.

 The trail as it winds down to the protest tree and beyond

 Approaching the tree

 The protest tree, with a cut area from which to view it

 The 'branch' of the tree, reading "Commodifying Invisibility", as viewed from inside the trunk

 As the trail goes past the tree

 Crossing through a marsh-like area of periodic flooding

 Leading up to the bridge

 The bridge crossing the brook

 There are several log jams in the brook along the property, which we hope to clear soon

 Looking upstream

The trail going back

 A view of the barn from down by the river

The barn, solar shed, protest tree, and the other house on the property visible from the field

~Sean