Work Party at the Garden

A cool but unexpectedly dry day! We are in tidying up mode now; the accessible beds were cleaned up, with the voluminous squash and cucumber vines removed, and weeds removed form the vegetable beds in preparation for mulching with fallen leaves, which will take place over the next few weeks.

The runner beans were thinned out as there is so much foliage that the beans are pale in colour as they have been shielded from the sun, but there are quite a few more beans to come. Bush beans have stopped cropping now so were cut down. Raspberry canes were also cut back, as although there are quite a few berries on them, there will not be enough sun to ripen them.

Further cutting back took place in the wild berry area, with both the red and blue elderberry shrubs reduced in height and thinned, as well as the thimble berry bushes. "Volunteer" oak saplings were also removed from this area, together with a vigorous growth of thistles! Today's harvest included carrots, parsnips, leeks, runner beans and herbs, and we all shared in a large squash from the Children's Garden which was cut into quarters for the volunteers and paired with herbs for a lovely roast squash dish!

Work Party at the Garden

A fine dry day to help our tidying up exercise! Another couple of beds were cleared to allow further cover crop seeding. The cover crop in the broad bean bed (due to be planted out at the end of October) has sprouted very thickly, so we might have to thin it out when planting the beans. Foliage from the spent squashes was added to the pile waiting to be composted, necessitating another turning of the system!

Three barrow loads of reasonable compost were emptied out of Bin 3 and spread onto the orchard area, then Bin 2 turned into Bin 3, and finally Bin 1 was turned into Bin 2, to make way for the enormous pile of material in the Collection Bay!

Some winter salad seeds and seedlings were planted out in the accessible beds, some of them having been taken from the vertical growing wall of the Shed, where they weren't doing very well - not enough soil perhaps? It's an experiment!

Thanks to Farmers and Shoppers

Our monthly Riley Park Farmers Market was held on Saturday, October 2. Shoppers donated $111.50 to allow the Neighbourhood House to buy produce and foodstuffs for our weekly food distribution program. Weekly, we serve over 50 families and 160+ people on average. Our hard working and helpful volunteers, Poonam and Shima are pictured collecting donations from the farmers. Thank you to the Vancouver Farmers Market for your support. Sign up to be a sustaining donor for the food distribution program.

Work Party at the Garden

It was time to clear away all the vertical growing supports from the tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and zucchini, so the remaining vegetables had to be harvested, resulting in a large quantity of green tomatoes which need processing into chutney and other recipes! The beds were then cleared to make way for the Fall cover crop, resulting in a huge quantity of material for the compost bin! Additionally we harvested carrots, beets, a few baby turnips, runner beans and the tops of the Brussels sprout plants, which encourages the sprouts to form on the stems. The straw bales squash growing area was considered a successful experiment, so we decided to leave them there for next year.