We are honored to be joined with Zarah, the vice principal of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation School and fellow UBC professor in the Faculty of Education. All the knowledge in this workshop will be valuable in understanding the indigenous connection with plants as well to use in your own garden! Sign up here.
Guided Work Party - July 20th
The forecast is looking hot hot hot! Today we learnt from Alex that the germination rate of a seed is directly correlated to the amount of soil particles it comes in contact with. So finer and less clumpy soil does great for the seeds!
Art dropped by with some black cap raspberries for us to sample. They are native to eastern North America and can often be used as purple dye. Be careful as they can stain!
Angela recruited a few gardeners to turn the compost today. We unveiled the compost from the weeds bin and there was so much! Three barrows full to be exact. The last time this was done was on March 27th, close to 4 months in the making. The compost was spread throughout the woodlands border and the edible forest area.
Several root vegetables were planted today, including the red carrots from the citizen seed trial and different varieties of daikon and radishes. Can’t wait for them to pop up!
In the morning, I brought the gardeners some Asian buns from the seniors event happening in the park. After 2 hours of hard work, lunch of dolmas and fatayer was provided by Silva. For a refreshing beverage, Selina brought fireweed syrup served with cold soda water, find the recipe here.
Guided Work Party - July 17th
This has been a cool La Niña year for sure! Many old and new volunteers helping out today including those from the neighborhood, exchange students from Japan, and students from the north shore who heard about our community gardening! Alex led a walk through the garden beds and talked about how we can plan crops around the weather patterns of the year. This year might not be great for warm weather crops and we might not expect much here in Vancouver, a handful of ground cherries might be the expectation. However, the cool season crops like leeks, lettuce, and peas are still going strong!
Alex shared some red orach or orache (Atriplex hortensis) seeds which has also been called saltbush or mountain spinach! Red orach is an annual cool season crop that can also be used to draw salt out of soil and has been shown to do so effectively (1): a self seasoning crop. The plants shared were a vibrant purple. This purple color comes from the pigments, anthocyanins, that are great antioxidants with benefits including lowering risks of cancer (2)!
We also harvested some lacinato kale from the bottom up, leaving some leaves for the plant to keep growing! Raspberries, tayberries, black raspberries, and strawberries were also picked and shared.
Angela also checked on how the compost was doing, a whooping 30℃!
Jan
Red mountain spinach and seeds!
Jan explaining what makes Orache red - anthocyanins!
Alex with Red Orache
Weeding tomato bed
Companion planting red mountain spinach in our future garlic patch!
Harvesting berries!
Fruit Tree Pruning Workshop - Coming Up
Join us in our upcoming tree pruning workshop! Little do tree owners know, there are necessary measures to ensure fruit quality and size, year after year. By regularly pruning and shaping the tree, it can improve airflow, canopy size, and many other things!
Please bring your own pruning tools and gardening gloves if you can. Sign up using the link below!
Guided Work Party - July 13th
We harvested the rest of the broad beans today as the aphids were now causing serious damage, and laid the foliage down to dry out, keeping the roots in the ground to release nitrogen back into the soil.
The old garlic bed was given a good going over prior to a planned planting of a catch crop of potatoes and chard; it was top dressed with our compost.
There was lots of lettuce, bushels of broad beans and peas, the last of the turnips and some bitter greens, and also a few strawberries which we shared whilst eating the frozen Strawberry Shortbreads left over from the Strawberry Tea, which made excellent Ice-cream Sandwiches!
Alex mentioned letting bolting plants go to seed, such as lettuce and broccoli, to give pollinators a little treat! He and Selina also discussed the bitter greens, like dandelion leaves, in Rita’s plot which have health benefits.
Angela
Snow peas, Snap peas and Pod peas!
Our Citizen Scientist’s (Wenwen & Elaine) reviewing their bean crop
Angela gave a brief talk on making compost, after which the contents were given a good stir
Jan talking pea varieties.
Beautifully prepared bed ready for the Citizen’s Seed Trial of carrots
A barrowload of (slightly twiggy) compost ready to be distributed
Calendula and Fireweed are beautiful and tasty! Emily talking about health benefits of calendula tea. Selina’s calendula oil & salve. Fireweed blooms harvested to make fireweed syrup. The fireweed in all its glory, which Selina talked about after the work party during a discussion on its herbal uses, as well as Calendula. Selina and Emily talking about Calendula, whilst tasting Emily’s Calendula tea.
