Potato Planting Project ... June 16, 2013, Forum Sustainability Corner

June 16, 2013, Forum Sustainability Corner:

(Written by Stephen Lavender)

Sustainable gardens require a sustainable supply of gardeners. Fostering a growing awareness of sustainability's importance, the St. Francis School community has embraced the parish's gardening program. The 5th grade students of Ms. Kim Verhines' class recently participated in the St. Francis Sustainable Garden's potato planting project. 

With background and instruction provided by Sustainable Garden coordinators Erich Jensen and Rose Sherry, the 5th graders spent an outdoor class session learning the basics of gardening and the specifics of planting potatoes. Working in groups of two, the students received sprouted potato sections and planted them in the garden's prepared soil.    

All gardeners know that planting is only one of many early steps in a long growing season. Individuals and families from the parish have volunteered to water and weed our sustainable gardens throughout the summer. In the fall a mature potato crop will be greeted by an equally mature group of gardeners. The 5th graders who planted in the spring will return as 6th graders this fall to experience and enjoy the harvesting of their sustainably grown produce. 

Erich captured the thoughts of our community when he commented that "sowing seeds in the garden hopefully means sowing seeds of sustainability in young minds for lifetime commitment." Wendy Lemke from St. Francis School and Patrick Sherry have also been instrumental in supporting and organizing the potato project. We thank them for their efforts and look forward to an abundant harvest this fall for distribution to Perry Nursery School families!

Garden Update

Garden Update for Friday May 31, 2013. 

Written by Rose Sherry

Hello everyone,

The Good Lord is helping to water the garden this week. 
The spinach and rhubarb have been getting harvested and delivered already (thanks Erich and Ann Marie!!)
The potatoes have been planted in Paul along with some melons this year. We will be companion planting some bush beans in Paul in the near future. We are waiting until the potatoes come up some so that hopefully they will keep the bunnies away from the beans.

Speaking of bunnies:

Patrick stopped by the garden before Mass this morning and found a bunny burrowing between the peas in Matthew. He maneuvered around to coax it out to see where it would go to get through the fence. It went through the sides of the bottom of the gate. I thought that those looked kind of large. After Mass he went back again and it had returned. The second time he tried to it jumped over the lower fencing through the posts between Matthew and Luke.

When I got to the garden I saw two bunnies near the rectory patio.

So we put the white bucket in front of the gate opening and a watering can in front of the other gate opening. Don't know if they can jump over the lower fencing anyway. 

So we need to keep our eyes open for these critters while we determine how best to keep them from the main garden.

Good news:

We Harvested spinach and rhubarb...It took me a couple of tries to get it right. 

I put the rhubarb leaves in the city bin. Erich can we put them in our compost bins??

Patrick transplanted a couple of potatoes that sprouted in Luke and John into Paul and added some more sprouts.

The entire bed should be watered. You'll notice there are black hoses there. Those are soaker hoses (incase you didn't know) and we are planning on setting those up soon that that it will be easier to water Paul. More on that soon.

We will be at Mass on Monday to sub for someone and are planning on bringing straw for the beds and fixing the bean poles. I think that they will be fine until Monday, although they are sprouting as well as the squash. :-) We will also bring more Journal pages. We can also address what we want to do with the hoses for Paul.

That's it for now.

Rose

Garden gate Update Mon, 3 Jun 2013.

Written by Rose Sherry

Hello all,

A quick update on our bunny invasion. We came to the garden this morning to find that something (we thinking the bunnies) had chewed through the plastic netting attached to the bottom of the gate. As an interim solution, we have installed the short white plastic edging in the gate entrance to see if this keeps them out of the bottom of the gate and thus the garden. 

You will have to step over this short edging to enter the garden until we can engineer a solution that can be moved. So far we don't think that the bunnies are eating any of the crops but it appears that they have burrowed a hold in the Matthew bed. Please be on the lookout for any suspicious activity of this nature and report back to us if you see anything.

We will be adding straw this week as mulch to the beds and hopefully hooking up the soaker hoses in Paul. There are melons planted in Paul so don't worry about weeding there yet until they come up. They should probably look like the squash plants that are coming up in John. 

Ann Marie pulled all the spinach in Matthew since it was starting to bolt. Also in Matthew, Patrick has planted cucumbers among the peas (they will use the same supports). 

On the west side there is an egg plant growing, it is marked with a craft stick. He will be planting melons on the East and South sides where the spinach was before.

There is parsley growing near the asparagus, we would like to just let that grow since we didn't get to grow seedlings this year.

In Luke, there were beets planted between the onions and peppers, they are coming up now. It also looks like there are nasturtium plants growing among the peppers in Luke, we'd like to let them grow. I'll take pictures tomorrow when we are there so that you can identify them.

That's it for now. If you have any questions please ask.

Rose