By Alex Kaiser, Angela Hoy, and Helen Shim
It was a quiet day at the garden, what with Spring Break! But fine weather enabled our small group to do a lot of weeding, and tidying, plus harvesting a large amount of over-wintered kale and some lamb’s lettuce.
Chive plants that were surplus to our requirements were removed from the Rewilder Bed and donated to the Produce Library.
We started off with a short discussion on hummingbirds and their unique place in ecosystems in North and South America, being able to pollinate plants in cold temperatures when insects aren't able to be active. This has enabled them to develop special relationships with certain plants.
Anna’s Hummingbird spends its winters here in Vancouver. We pointed out some of the plants they are feeding on this time of year, notably Flowering Red Currant, Oregon Grape, Osoberry, and in our case, Haskap.
The rest of the work party mainly consisted of weeding out plants with tap roots like Dock and Dandelion, as well as some Teasels that escaped our herb beds. We worked on getting rid of Hairy Bittercress and Geum as well.
We harvested tons of overwintered Siberian kale, Corn Salad (Mache) and Radicchio. This is best done now before it warms up because they will start to go to flower soon, and the overwintered leaves are very sweet!
Our new birdhouses are up, and at the end of the work party we were surprised by a Cooper’s Hawk visiting the garden!
