Squirrel Brand Garden Community Blog

August Notes

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 03:08:00 +0000

Hi all,

Harvest time is in high swing, and it is lovely to be collecting various fruits and vegetables from the garden. The tomato and zucchini and squash blights that we have been experiencing are shared by many in New England. Most with whom I compare notes lament about the wetness this season and also say that they have not gotten much in terms of squash.

We are blessed to have some happy eggplants and peppers along with some citrus and happy hibiscus. Our tomatoes are less than happy though, and we will likely take them from their misery soon in the hopes of planting some fall crops. Blight is awful because it will kill the plant before it gives its usual share of fruit. We did manage to get enough tomatoes so I felt as if I had a taste and had regular ones at that. But we did not get enough to be overrun, which is a kind of blessing that I found myself longing for...Tomato paste, canned tomatoes--all of those possibilities were extinguished. Alas.

I do hope to join the BNAN master gardener class this winter and might be able to learn there about what to do with blight. We had it in Vermont, as well, and we never did get rid of it. It only afflicted our tomatoes, but we planted them anyway.

One solution, I read, is to plant tomatoes in straw bales that never touch the ground and thus eliminate blight. That might be an interesting experiment next summer. We should be prepared to have blight again next year if we do nothing as blight is like a virus--living in the soil. That said, I can hardly imagine using any kind of pesticide even if the city did allow it! Pesticides are the antithesis of good gardening and healthful living--in my opinion anyway.

I also wished to share that we did raise some Monarch caterpillars to butterflies, thanks to Gretchen whose success hatching eggs inspired us. Gretchen, I learned that only 10 percent of caterpillars hatched in the wild make it to butterfly stage as there are too many predators. So taking in the eggs when you find them--and raising the caterpillars--is a great way to increase butterfly populations. We released our first butterfly today in Squirrel Brand garden, around 4 p.m. and have another 7 in coccoons and one lone caterpillar that is still growing. We collected many eggs and ended up losing about six or seven caterpillars for various reasons (one crawled out of the cage when it was still pretty small; four became dried up or sickened by milkweed taken from next to Carberry's (pesticides, I wonder?). Still another was smooshed when I picked up a leaf! What are the odds. I felt quite awful about these small failures until I learned about the mortality rates in the wild. And I am happy to say that, if all goes well, we will have added nine butterflies to the Cambridge community.

Be well all! Hope to see you in the garden. We'll be there in the coming week or two, sorting out summer crops and making way for fall.

Linda

Tomato Blight? Pruning may help

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 03:52:00 +0000

Some gardeners have mentioned that their tomato leaves are starting to yellow. When this happened to me last year, I did some research and learned of about 5-7 pathogens... any of which could cause yellowing leaves. Though I learned of all the possible diseases. Properly diagnosing the disease was a bit out of my expertise and time allotment.

Some diagnostic tests were extreme... even involving cutting the plant down and immersing the stem in water to look for whitish discharge. Left alone, the symptoms diminished, and my tomato eventually made it through the summer reasonable well. But from this scare, I learned the benefits of pruning in promoting plant vigor and in reducing pathogens.

For some gardeners engaged in intensive gardening, pruning also encourages strong vertical growth, giving more space to other plants ( http://www.taunton.com/finegardening/how-to/articles/pruning-tomatoes.aspx). Pruning encourages air circulation and bigger fruits. At the end of the summer the plant can easily be capped to encourage the ripening of the last few tomatoes.

There are a few drawbacks from pruning: fewer fruits, commitment to trellising, and since there is less foliage, fruits are more exposed to sun scalding.

I hope more people will consider pruning as a tool to discourage soil/plant pathogens and as a tool to manage their plots. Anyone suspecting that their plants are diseased should act responsible to contain the disease and restrict it from spreading to other plants. Diseased plant should be disposed of in the garbage - NOT THE COMPOST.

How High Can They Go

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:16:00 +0000

This close up (and even the pic below) don't do justice to the height of Amy's burgeoning tomatoes...Anyone want to wager how high they will go?

Look at Amy's tomatoes

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Simply marvelous...

Documentation of Garden Flooding

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:56:00 +0000

Yesterday, with the significant rain fall, the garden flooded.
I took some shots of it while the kids and I explored what had happened...
This was the worst flooding I've seen in the garden yet.

Take care,

Linda

Water, Water Everywhere

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:55:00 +0000

And then there was...a Flood

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:54:00 +0000

Look at This Incredible Flooding

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 14:52:00 +0000

Square Foot Gardening

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 22:49:00 +0000

Now that Linda posted the lovely photo of our pea blossoms, it's time that Rob and I make good on our promise to write a bit about the method we're experimenting with this year: Square Foot Gardening.

The basics:
1) raised beds -- significantly diminishes weeding and prevents walking on soil (crushing roots)
2) super fluffy, super-nutritious, moisture-regulating soil mix: 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, 1/3 vermiculite.
3) handy 1 ft square grid: makes it easy to eyeball plant spacing and gives a
structure for interplanting of companion crops.

Why
SFG, popularized by Mel Bartholemew, is just one of many intensive gardening techniques. We chose it because my brother --- who really knows how to stretch a dollar --- had great success with this method in the past few years.

My brother had chosen this method for a couple reasons:

1) At the time, he was homeschooling 3 children. Several components of SFG make nice curriculum supplements: lots of measuring and calculations required in the bed construction and square-marking; plant life cycle; where food comes from; and all those soft lessons like delayed gratification, responsibility, and frugality.

2) My brother's the type of person who likes to optimize things from first principles. As such, I'm sure that he did extensive research on intercropping (interplanting of crops that have complementary nutrient needs/supplies) and optimal layout for succession planting (full 3 season gardening where each crop is turned under and supplies nutrients to the next crop). Roberto and I have not really pursued this thread --- while it's tempting to suggest that our incomprehensible layout must be the result of advanced understanding of soil conditioning and detailed planning, it's actually just haphazard (although mesclun-under-tomatoes does seem to be working out pretty well right now....we plan to pull the lettuces after their next bolt).

3) My brother really knows how to stretch a dollar.

Our experience so far

We built our Soviet block apartment complex, I mean, raised beds, in early March.

We learned that garden stores & home improvement stores don't really start stocking soil & supplies until LATE March. Getting the vermiculite and peat moss that early was a bit of a problem. I'd recommend building up your beds in the fall, so that you've got everything ready to go for putting that first pea seed in the ground on St. Patrick's day. Also, major home improvement box stores (who shall remain nameless) no longer carry vermiculate because, when dry, it poses a particulate inhalation hazard. (classified as a "nuisance dust" according to materials safety data sheets. Note that much of the recent flap over potential vermiculite hazard has been because of asbestos contamination, not a toxicity inherent of vermiculate.)

Since this was our first year doing SFG, our soil mix was a bit warmer than the ambient soil at the time, which was a plus. Unfortunately, germination was a bit dodgy for a couple reasons: first, the soil mix was so fluffy that the top inch dried out immediately on any sunny day. In general, this soil mix is really good at maintaining even moisture content (the vermiculite acts as a moisture capacitor), but only below the top layer (which is perfect once roots are established). Secondly, the water hookup at Squirrel Brand Community Garden was not turned on until late April, so we had to schlepp water from our home (only ~4 blocks away) every couple days to keep our germinating seeds moist.

We developed a greater appreciation for floating row covers at about the same time that everyone else in the country decided to start planning their garden --- way too late. So, in April, the heirloom seed supply that gave us such prompt service in February when made our initial order, was completely overwhelmed. So our row covers arrived a bit too for us to really take advantage of.

Which brings us to my second piece of advice: plan your garden early and order your seeds on-line by February. This will let you really engage in 3-season gardening to make the most of your community plot. In Cambridge, our last-frost-date is around the 3rd or 4th week of April. This means that the earliest crops (english peas & spinach seeds planted 6-8 weeks before last frost, onion sets or seeds planted 4-6 weeks before last frost) can go in as soon as the soil thaws --- first or second week of March! Also, February-March is the perfect time to start seeds for warmer weather crops indoors (if you have a sunny windowsill).

Our local stores don't stock seeds until April, which is really too late to get started. So order your seeds early, and you'll be ready to go for both direct-sow and indoor starts.

Look at the Peas

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:16:00 +0000

Emily and Rob's Square Foot Gardening project has produced these lovely peas...

Just wanted to post a pic.

Radish Mystery Solved

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 17:10:00 +0000

I was in the garden today talking with James about my radish crop. I'll try to post a picture, but they were measly and didn't bulb. They were in for twice as much time as the packet indicated (50 days instead of 25).

So...what went wrong?

A little researched turned up that my soil was too rich with nitrogen and probably low on potassium. Radishes like just the opposite--low nitrogen and high potassium.

This explains why one of James's radishes (that I had given him) did beautifully on the top leaves but produced a smallish radish.

Mystery solved!

June lettuce

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:35:00 +0000

The lettuce is doing very well as these pictures indicate.

Ah Sunflowers

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:34:00 +0000

Margaret Fuller's sunflowers are progressing quite nicely.

New Raised Bed

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:33:00 +0000

Three gardeners, working together on a plot, created these raised beds...They are stunning!

First Eggplant Blossoms

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:31:00 +0000

Here are the first eggplant blossoms...so purple!

Blast from the past

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 17:31:00 +0000

Apparently, Squirrel Brand candies are still being sold on amazon. Here's a picture...Who remembers these?

:-)

On Deadly Nightshade and Other Dark Portents

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Since I discovered the deadly nightshade growing in our garden, I've done a lot of research on this fascinating plant, with which I've been intrigued for a time.

In Vermont, this was growing near my garage (loads of it). It came in as a wildflower/weed. Finding it enchantingly beautiful, I allowed it to live until it was near berry stage. A relative identified it for me--and urged me to pull it up. I had a baby (Aidan) at the time. The plant irritated my skin where it touched me.

The consensus seems to be that we should kindly ask our gardener to remove the deadly nightshade and replace it with another companion plant to deter pests, something like marigolds or catnip. He is out of town now, but I will try to reach him when he returns. I have sent him emails as well.

For now, I labeled the plant "This is toxic. Do not handle."

Liz had wonderful ideas for creating a fence around it with skull and crossbones on it. I love that idea but wonder what kind of fence we could build? She also said it would be a good education opportunity to teach people about these kinds of plants. Foxglove, for example, is poisonous, but the plant is used by drug companies for heart conditions (do not try this at home though as Foxglove really is powerful)!

Liz also mentioned this wonderful garden, created by Jane, Duchess of Northumberland: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2004/apr/05/martinwainwright. It is worth the web visit. She grows cocaine, belladonna (of course!), and scores of other poisonous things. It is like something out of a story book--really fascinating and cool. However, she has a staff to educate people, and the garden (I imagine) is locked at night. Fascinating topic though.

And lest we sell belladonna short, check her out when you are in the garden. As her name (Italian meaning beautiful lady) indicates, she is quite stunning. Black widow style.

Cold Frames

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 18:14:00 +0000

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone was interested in building a cold frame for this coming winter? We just got an old cold frame that needs work (which we plan to do this summer)...But we plan to use this on our plot in the late fall/early winter months.

Is anyone else interested in building cold frames? Tim has expressed interest, and I thought that maybe a bunch of us could come together to plan, discuss, and construct them! There are always building materials on Freecycle (there is some free landscaping lumber there now for instance), and I think we'd be able to get some old windows at an area junk yard.

Take care and let me know!

Linda

Updated wait list

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:42:00 +0000

1. Gross, Daniel 04/14/2008
2. Zether, Leila Hooper 04/14/2008
3. Fountain, Clayton 04/14/2008
4. Stewart, Emily 04/14/2008
5. Cosel, Gabrielle 04/21/2008
6. Appapillai, Anjuli 04/24/2008
7. Parks, Shaheen 04/24/2008
8. Sterrett, Hatch 05/22/2008
9. Kiely, Tim 05/22/2008

First for next year:

1. Pollack, Robert 04/04/2008
He had to voluntarily give up space this summer due to traveling and is therefore first in line for next year.

Updates on Plots and Pics

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:23:00 +0000

Hi all, please welcome four new gardeners to our community: Sarah Mullins, Erin Rowland, Susan Mershon, and Sarah Holden.

Welcome! Also: Sheila has asked that anyone interested in helping her clear and plant plots should contact her. Since I don't want to publish her phone number here, you can reach her through the Squirrel Brand list serv. She is going to be gardening on Monday between four and five and probably on Wednesday and Thursday. She plans to construct a rectangular structure for beans, morning glories, or nastiriums!

Linda

Check out the Video

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:19:00 +0000

Check out this community-based video/TV that a person made of our community garden!

It's very nice to see the garden in April--with those gorgeous red tulips...

http://cctvcambridge.org/node/2943/play

Take care all,

Linda

Time to Reassign some Plots

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Wed, 28 May 2008 02:15:00 +0000

Hi all,

Dan has asked for help re-assigning plots. Here is the lowdown. The waitlist is here:

1 Rowland, Erin 03/21/2008
2 Pollack, Robert 04/04/2008
3 Mershon, Susan 04/14/2008
4 Mullins, Sarah 04/14/2008
5 Gross, Daniel 04/14/2008
6 Zether, Leila Hooper 04/14/2008
7 Fountain, Clayton 04/14/2008
8 Stewart, Emily 04/14/2008
9 Cosel, Gabrielle 04/21/2008
10 Appapillai, Anjuli 04/24/2008
11 Parks, Shaheen 04/24/2008
12 Sterrett, Hatch 05/22/2008
13 Kiely, Tim 05/22/2008

I am ready to assign two immediately and am waiting to contact two others about three remaining plots.

Erin will be assigned to plot #28 and Susan Mershon to plot #29. Plot #30 will go to Sarah Mullins. Note: Robert has asked to be temporarily removed from consideration for a plot.

Erin or Susan, could you email me: romelucca@gmail.com?

Take care, Linda

ways to spend garden fees...

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Fri, 23 May 2008 05:20:00 +0000

1. apply garden fees to Area 4 grant which is good for $400 towards community building project. the only caveat is we need to contribute 25% matching funds.

2. seeds of change offers free seeds. these seeds can be donated to the community groups or used to grown around the perimeter of the garden as flowers. all we need to do is pay for the shipping costs.

3. buy a water can.

4. allocate some funds for administrative costs, such as: postage for mailings, buying materials to mark off plot boundaries, etc.

The Sunflower Project

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Thu, 22 May 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Hi all,

Dan had the great idea to line the perimeter of the garden with sunflowers...I have been sprinkling seeds in, and I know James has been too. If anyone feels like donating some seeds, we could use even more. Some of the first sunflower seedlings are peeking out from under the mulch and soil around the perimeter of the fence, too, so if you are weeding that area, be on the lookout for them...

If the spirit moves you, sprinkle some out there, and let's see what happens! We have some Italian sunflowers that I put in there, a mixture of nice oranges, and some straight yellows...Should be interesting to see what grows.

Before...

noreply@blogger.com (Squirrel Brand Community Garden) — Tue, 20 May 2008 00:51:00 +0000

I thought it would be fun to post some early season shots of folks' plots and then snap pictures later in the season...I'll try to make the rounds and get some more early season shots tomorrow.