Covid-19 Protocols for Riley Park Community Garden

May 11, 2020 Subject to Change

COVID protocols and guidelines from our public health and government authorities are followed.

Community Gardens are an Essential Service. They are not functioning as social gatherings, but to grow and provide food for our community.

Until Further Notice

We cannot hold Work Parties, host Workshops, Lunch Events or Gatherings. We must ensure physical distancing.

You can get involved. Sign Up for our Small Team Gardening sessions.

Garden Guides - helping our community to grow food

In response to COVID, we are supporting our community to grow food. The Riley Park Garden Guides project is an online and community resource to provide one-on-one mentorships with expert/Master Gardeners, helping you with a site assessment to determine soil quality, suggesting soil amendments and crops; and providing you with some seeds to get your garden going or producing short Gardening Tips videos.

Get started. Complete our short survey. 

COVID Protocols in the Riley Park Community Garden (RPCG) 

Please follow these guidelines:

• Our maximum number of gardeners is 4 people. Sign Up for our Small Team Gardening sessions led by a core volunteer. Everyone is welcome. Your participation will help us maintain the valuable community resource that the RPCG has become.

• The garden is closed to the public when our gardeners are at work. It is closed during the Riley Park Summer Farmers Market (Saturdays until 3:00pm).

• No dogs are allowed in the garden.

• Bring your own tools, no shared snacks or lunches. When shared tools must be used, these must be sanitized with a 5% bleach solution.

• Any surface that is touched should be sanitized with the bleach solution. These include: wheelbarrow and sprinkling can handles, compost bins, any part of the watering system such as turnoff valves and nozzles.

For further information email us, sign up for a Small Team Gardening session or learn more about our Garden Guides project.

COVID Protocols in Garden: April 22, 2020

Updated April 22, 2020 and subject to change

We comply with government and public health guidelines. These are protocols specific for the Riley Park Community Garden. We are working to help us all safely garden.

Please follow the guidelines:

• Don’t come to the garden if you are not well. Symptoms of covid-19 infection include high fever, coughing, sore throat and shortness of breath. Please communicate with the RPCG if you need any assistance.

• Wash your hands before and after coming to the garden.

• Work parties will be limited to 3 gardeners plus a lead gardener who will wear an orange vest.

• Lead gardener for each work party will be responsible to ensure minimum spacing and sanitizing of tools, etc. The lead will also diplomatically ask the public to stay out of the garden while gardeners are working

• When in the garden, maintain spacing of at least 2 meters between gardeners.

• As much as possible, gardeners should use their own tools. When shared tools must be used, these must be sanitized with a 5% bleach solution before and after use.

• Any surface that is touched should be sanitized with the bleach solution. These include: wheelbarrow and sprinkling can handles, compost bins, any part of the watering system such as turnoff valves and nozzles. Use of bleach solution. The active ingredient in bleach loses effectiveness in a short time and the solution must be made up daily. The spray bottle marked with a water fill line (600mL) and a 30 mL cup for measuring bleach are provided in the shed. The 5% bleach solution is slightly stronger than the 3% solution recommended on the Chlorox website, but will provide a margin of safety against measuring errors. https://www.clorox.com/resources/coronavirus/products/

Sanitizing Procedure.: Wash tools, spray with the bleach solution, leave on for 5 minutes before rinsing well with clean water. Allow to air dry.

* Thanks to Dr. Hannah Traggis and the Wareham Community Garden for providing a science based set of guidelines that have been adapted for our situation. For a more detailed advisory for community gardens, see https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_cd8KCsO_V9kKjDvZYPXvhFdqWBTobR eBnw2TiNV4bE/edit

Garden Diary: April 15 2020

Today’s work party we had Sean, Carmen, Anja and Art all get stuck in across the garden and accomplished the following:

1. Amigas bed (V10) has been cleanup and reshaping ready for a new season.

2. There was mucho watering by Anja which the newly planted seeds will be very thankful for. We focused on new seedings in the Veggie bed 14 and Accessible bed 2. Seeding into very heavy compost layer in the latter will likely inhibit germination and seedling survival. The Net Zero compost is nutrient rich, but it has high salt and ammonia that necessitate working it into the soil and not seeding directly into it.

3. The Brock Elementary seeded pea bed (V5) resulted in numerous bare spots due to the very cold spring weather post seeding. Those spots were reseeded today and will be watered this evening. 

4. Following the COVID-19 recommendations from other community gardens, the roofs of the compost bins have been opened so that gardeners won’t have to touch them in managing compostables.

Good team work!

Garden Diary: April 11th 2020

A beautiful sunny easter weekend and Rebecca was in the garden tidying up the South Pollinator border. She cut back all the dead stalks and twigs to give way for the new growth that’s starting to come up. It’s now looking much fresher, but still plenty of weeding to do over next week before we can get some new plants in here.

Until next time gardeners,

the Riley Park Garden team.

Garden Diary: April 9th 2020

Carol and Art planted early potatoes today. There are 6 different varieties as follows from north (foreground) to south:

1. La Ratte yellow fingerling

2. Russet

3 Sieglinde yellow

4.White Rose

5. Yukon Gold

6. Red Chieftain

Rows are 0.5 m apart and approx. 15 cm deep. Seed pieces were planted 30 cm apart in the rows in blocks of 8 plants of each variety. Seed pieces were covered by about 2 to 4 cm of soil to be followed by further “hilling up” as the plants grow. This plot had received the standard application of 2 to 4 cm of Net Zero compost on April 2. 

Thanks to Helmer’s Organic Farm in the Pembertion Valley for the donation of seed potatoes. Support them at the Farmers Market.

Note that soil temperatures at about 5cm depth at mid day today was 15C, up from around 10 to 11 two days ago. The spring is starting to warm up and it’s a good time to plant cool season crops.

Until next time gardeners,

the Riley Park Garden team.