Guided Work Party - July 10th

Alex led his first work party and talked about aphid infestations and what gardeners can do to cope with them, bearing in mind they provide valuable food for predators! The rest of the garlic was harvested and stored temporarily in the greenhouse. We noticed that the cauliflowers had mostly bolted, despite our attempts to shade the curds from the sun, so they were also harvested, along with some broccoli that was also starting to bolt. The extreme heat a couple of weeks ago was probably to blame. Also, the red onions were showing signs of needing to be pulled, despite their small size. However, the white onions are looking good, and so are the leeks which needed further spacing. We picked the first of the berries, and are hoping for a bumper blueberry crop.

Angela

Thank you to Urban Root’s Giving Gardens for the wonderful cauliflower!

Urban Roots Cauliflower!

Alex teaching about aphids!

Cauliflowers bolting due to heat

Today’s harvest : garlic, red onions, lettuces, broccoli and cauliflower, chard, a few assorted berries, and Japanese greens!

Red onions, rather small , probably due to adverse weather

Garlic harvested!

Bumper blueberry crop

Guided Work Party - July 6th

Fantastic day for gardening! It's great to know that people both near and far can find out about and join us in the garden. In addition to our volunteers from Vancouver, we had a visitor from Maple Ridge joining us today who found us by googling "things to do in Vancouver". How wonderful!

We started the day off with a tour of the accessible raised garden beds that had beautiful bitter greens, mustard greens, cilantro, edible dandelion greens, and more! Thank you to Urban Roots for their donations of leafy greens and cucumbers that we also grow in our accessible raised garden beds. They smell great and are ready to harvest!

After the tour, we got into harvesting broccoli, snow peas, snap peas, our red russian garlic and music garlic. So many stems of garlic, over 100! Silva also brought in falafel wraps for everyone! It was delicious!

Jan

🥦 🥒 🧄

Harvesting peas and garlic!

So many garlic scapes, so many garlics!

More harvesting!

Thanks Urban Root!

Strawberry Tea - Recap

A bright and warm day for our event! Many people came by and visited all of our various booths.  For activities, we have UBC volunteers that prepared a DIY seed paper workshop. Kids and adults all got to create a card filled with wildflower seeds and take them home! Master Gardener Selina Pope hosted the pollinator plants table filled with seeds of all shapes and sizes. Many people took some home with a hopeful promise of a low maintenance flower bed for the next year. We also had the compost game set up for people who wanted to learn more about composting at home. Madame Beespeaker surprised everyone with a lavish Queen Bee outfit. She gave a very educational and interesting talk about the uniqueness of the bee species we have in BC. Everyone listened intently the whole way through. After that, kids followed the beespeaker around with nets and jars, hoping to catch and observe a bee up close. 

The people that came by also walked away with a delicious homemade strawberry cream filled biscuit along with a few strawberry and mint plants. In case you missed this awesome event, always check out our event calendar to see what else is coming up!

Wenwen

Guided Work Party - June 29th

A lovely overcast day for some gardening and interviewing! 

Reporters from CBC wished to do a story on the food insecurity issue in BC and highlight how our garden and the food distribution program is trying to combat that. Art and Amy spoke about their own experiences with the garden, 6 years in. We hope to see it air soon!

Shauna came back to continue the work on the irrigation system, replacing the lines to another type that has emitters closer together. A team of 4 worked on weeding the last two beds, meticulously removing the grasses, spent forget-me-nots and other weeds but keeping the baby borage and calendula for the pollinators. A few heads of asian greens were harvested as they are starting to bolt and are shading the cucumber seedlings. The snap peas were also harvested before they became buried further beneath the crazy growing activity that is going on. 

Sadly the aphids came right back onto the broad beans and are starting to go for the beans themselves. BUT this time I noticed numerous pairs of ladybugs mating away. Although they are temporarily distracted right now, it is still a good sign. 

Wenwen

Amy being interviewed by the film crew.

Weeding along.

Harvesting pac choi!

Changing the irrigation lines.