Putting your garden to Bed

Steps for Cleaning up Your Garden in the Fall: 

Although I am not fully ready to admit that gardening season is heading into its last stages, 

the frost warnings & cold mornings are forcing me into reality!

1) Harvest!

Make sure you get all the great food out of your garden before it gets frosted. Now the nights are getting colder & we have had many frost warnings, its time to pick the majority of your sensitive plants (tomatoes, peppers, basil, cucumbers, zucchini) Your beets, carrots, kale, spinach, cabbage & a few others can last for awhile longer!  Check out our earlier post on frost protection for some more details.

2) Preserve!
Colder days & evenings are the perfect time to get in the kitchen & preserving your bountiful harvest. You can can, dry, freeze or eat plenty of veggies for enjoyment throughout the winter!

2) Pull out any dead plants or weeds of any type. 

If the plants were healthy throughout the season, put them in your compost. You may want to put heavily diseased plants or weeds going to seed elsewhere so they don't affect your compost for next season!

3) Water!
It may seem counter intuitive, but it is important to keep your garden moist if it is a dry Fall. This will help your perennial plants establish deep roots for upcoming seasons & will also keep your garden looking nice through the last of the season

3) Mulch

You can save yourself time in the spring if you mulch your garden now. It will help slow down or prevent weeds sprouting up when the soil warms again. Many people use straw for this purpose.

4) Plant!

Did you know that you can plant garlic or spinach in the late Fall? As soon as the soil warms up these plants will start growing & you will have a jump start on spring! It is also a great time to split & replant perennials or add some new ones to the bare spots in your garden. 

How to Save your tomato seeds .....

Here is a link from urbantomato website. Follow for lots for information on saving seeds. 

 The following  is a photo demonstration of how to save tomato seeds step-by-step.

Step #1 - Start with ripe, healthy tomatoes

Step #2 - Cut them in half

 Step # 3 - Squeeze liquid including seeds, into a jar

Step # 4 - Let ferment for 4-7 days. (pictured bel0w)

Step #5 - Fill the jar containing fermented seeds with water. The seeds will sink to the bottom, and mould float to the top.

Step #6- Pour off top layer of mould and water. Do not pour out seeds.

Step #7 - Fill Jar with Water again. Let seeds settle.

Step #8 - You may have to repeat Step #6 & 7 a few times until all that remains is clear water & seeds.

Step # 9 - Strain the Seeds

Step #10 - Let dry on a suspended screen for at least one week

I dry mine of a re-claimed baking rack. It works perfectly!

Frost Protection Tips

This is always a tricky time of year in a gardeners year. Cold nights & frost warnings make us fear for the survival of many of gardens & the plants that have not yet been fully harvested or ripened.

* Frost Damage

When is it most likely to frost?
Pay attention to local weather. They often post frost warnings at this time of the year. Frost is most likely to occur when the temperature dips below 3 or 4 degrees on a very clear night. Frosts are more likely to occur when there is a full moon.
Any cloud cover, rain or even wind can help prevent a frost from affecting your gardens. 

Here are some tips for the frost warning season:

#1 If the days are still warm & sunny & it is only going to be cold for a night or two (check out the 7 day forecast), you can extend the season by covering your precious plants with Reemay fabric, bed sheets or even blankets.  You will want to remove heavy fabrics covering plants if days get warm & sunny.

 #2 When the nights are getting consistently cold, and there are regular light & heavy frost warnings, pick all the fruits that are ripe or even showing colour. They will ripen inside. Harvest any other produce & get freezing, canning & eating!

Which plants are most susceptible to frost?

- Basil! Even a light frost will kill of those precious basil leaves. Be sure to cover your basil in any frost warning or pick it all & make some pesto!

- Tomatoes, peppers, eggplants. A light frost can kill of much of the plant & even flash freeze the fruit. Sadly once they melt they will turn to mush. Cover all plants in a frost warning or pick all the fruit showing any colour & they should ripen up inside. If the temperature is going to be cold for an extended period of time, you might as well pick all the green fruit too.

- Leafy Greens - Some thin leafy greens will be very susceptible to a frost. Cover them in frost warnings. Hearty greens such as spinach, chard & even arugula can stand a light frost. Kale gets even better tasting with frost.

- Almost all vegetables will be affected by a heavy frost. At a certain point you may want to just pick all the fruit & preserve what you can!

Armour Rd. Gardeners

Thanks so much to Scott (local Armour Rd Gardener Extraordinaire!) for sending along this great pic of his family in their garden. 

We love getting your photos!

Prince of Wales Outdoor Classroom -Before & After

This weekend, Prince of Wales Public School began to realize their vision of an Outdoor Classroom. With the generous help of strong and eager volunteers, the paths have been laid out and a few trees planted. Native trees, shrubs, grasses, pollinator and edible plants will be added in the upcoming weeks and the spring season. If you would like to  volunteer with this project, or can contribute tools and materials, please contact Marcy at the PCGN for details.

This space was previously a gravel pit with old playground equipment. Parent council, students and teachers at Prince of Wales envisioned a natural space for learning and playing.  Check out the Prince of Wales blog for more! 

LiftLock Community Garden Party

New gardeners at Liftlock Community Garden, enjoying the sun.

Myra brought out her amazing cobweb brooms, a traditional homesteading skill she acquired in North Carolina. Myra and Tom grow this broom corn variety in their plot at the Liftlock Garden.

Community gardeners share their summer stories- what grew well and what did  not. Peter is preparing for the fall planting of garlic and harvested a few turnips.

 The Liftlock Community Garden Party was a great success! Gardeners and visitors feasted on kale hummus, summer garden salsa , arugula pesto and a variety of salads. The entire garden looked spectacular, despite it being close to the end of season. Flowers were in full bloom everywhere while gardeners casually tended to their plots and shared success stories, new recipes and gardening  tips. We were delighted to meet fellow community gardeners from our local Bonaccord and Ashburnham Gardens.

Pretty~Ugly Veggie Contest Winners!

Congratulations to Sharon Cadman , with her prize winning pretty~ugly carrot and Suzanne Fulton with her pretty~ugly twisted green & red pepper. Both gardeners took home  beautiful potted plants generously donated by Johnston's Greenhouse. Thank you Sharon and Suzanne for bringing your veggies!

Garden Party is this Sunday!!

Hope you all are planning on heading down for a lovely afternoon of celebrating community gardens! Don't forget to bring your favourite beautiful, beautifully ugly, or just plain strange looking veggies to enter in the Pretty Ugly Vegetable Contest! 

Green Up Workplace Garden

At 378 Aylmer Street North, in front of Green Up, the Peterborough Community Garden Network grabbed the opportunity of planting the raised bed and garden at the side of the parking lot with heirloom tomatoes and kale,scarlet runner beans,  beets, basil, onions and fragrant herbs. Everything looks amazing and is ready for harvest. We put up a sign for our coworkers and neighbors to help themselves, as this is a free share workplace garden.

Contact Marcy or Jill at the PCGN if you are interested in planning a Workplace Garden.

September Newsletter

sept2012 -

George St. Community Garden Celebration

George St. United Church community garden is holding a potluck to celebrate a great first Community Garden season! If you were part of the garden, curious about the garden or interested in being a part of the garden next season, come to George St. United Church on Sept. 19th at 5pm. Bring a garden based dish along to share if you have it!

Community Garden Party

 

We would love for you to join us for a Garden Party.  It is a great time of year to gather together, learn about how great community gardens are, talk about the successes & struggles of the season, chat & learn from other gardeners & most importantly have FUN!  There will be garden games to play (croquet, bocce), garden snacks to sample, a beautiful garden to tour & the chance to enter our Pretty Ugly Vegetable Contest.  FREE. Everyone Welcome! 

Contact us with any questions or to volunteer to help out! 

Community/ Allotment & Hard Work!

One of the things that I have always loved most about this job is the fact that if you ask 100 people what 'Community Garden' means to them, you will likely get close to 100 different answers. Of course, themes will emerge. Community gardens create a space for many people to grow in a myriad of ways. (A place to grow food,  to learn from others or share their knowledge, to beautify neighbourhoods, donate food to a local organization, spend time outdoors with family, get exercise, engage with the community, etc ....)

However,  the word community confuses some people. Although the majority of community gardens in Peterborough are communal in the sense that they share land, resources and knowledge, they are in fact set-up as Allotment Gardens. Allotment gardens are community gardens that are divided into individual parcels. Families, groups or individuals sign-up, often pay a small fee & are responsible for planting & maintaining their area.

While I was at the Lift Lock Garden this weekend & came across a young gentleman picking from a garden that was not his. I politely asked him what he was up to. He told me that he had been coming down & picking food from the garden for years. In his opinion, the definition of  'Community Garden' was that it was there to be freely picked by the community. This may be the one definition of community garden that we at the PCGN do not welcome.

Clearly it was a misunderstanding. I explained that a 'Community Garden' most certainly does not mean that everyone in the community can come & pick freely from it. Families, and individuals work very hard to grow, weed, water & maintain their gardens and look very forward to harvest season. If someone comes to harvest their beets, tomatoes, beans or other veggies just as they were getting to the point they have been waiting for all season, it would be heartbreaking!

Inherently you are stealing from those gardeners if you are helping yourself to their hard earned harvest. 

If you would like to get a plot at a local community garden, volunteer with a garden in exchange for some produce or want to start a garden in your neighbourhood, we can help! We want to create as much access to gardens & fresh food as possible. We also work to advocate for the gardeners who have worked all year to reap their harvest.
Please email or call (705.745.3238 x.204)  if you have ANY questions.

Sincerely, Jillian Bishop