Seasonality?

Hey, everyone! I'm just posting a little helping chart that I found online earlier today, which shows when the growing seasons are for various different fruits and vegetables. It is very interesting to see just when we should be eating many of these foods, compared with how often we really do eat them (which is all year long). I know that I, for one, have never really been very savvy when it comes to when certain foods are really in season, so a tool like this is rather helpful:

http://www.fooddowntheroad.ca/online/seasonalfoodchart.php

I hope that some of you find this chart useful!

-Ray

Our first field trip!

Last Wednesday we went on a walking field trip to three different gardens, to see what they were all about and what we could apply to our garden that we had learned from them. We started at University Village in their community garden. Here are some pictures!

These are the tops of carrots:

This is their setup -- raised beds with hoses at every other for easy watering.

These are structures that Dick built for his peas to climb.

From Dick, we learned about what it is possible for us to plant. In the winter, he grows carrots, onions, radishes, and beans. He taught us that we should plant beans (or any legumes) in the winter, because they put nitrogen into the soil. If we then plant tomatoes for the summer in the same place the beans were growing, they will thrive on the naturally enriched soil.

After University Village, we went to Pastor Melissa Maxwell-Doherty's garden. She has mini citrus trees in big pots, and is growing lemons, limes, and grapefruits right now. In her vegetable garden, made of raised beds like UV's, Melissa is growing carrots, green onions, lettuce, brussel sprouts, red cabbage, broccoli, arugula, and peas. She also has an herb garden where she grows sage, rosemary, basil, and thyme. Melissa told us that in order to keep creatures out of her garden, she sprays the plants with fish oil -- it smells awful, but the rabbits think so, too, and stay out! [I didn't take any pictures at Melissa's. Add them if you did!]

After Melissa's, we walked over to the vacant lot next to Holy Trinity Lutheran Church. The area used to be used as a community garden a few years ago, but has been neglected recently and is now overrun by weeds. However, it seems like a great, big space that we could use, and they are willing to let us use it! It's up to us to decide if this is a good place for the CLU garden or not.

It was a great afternoon of discovery and learning from some experienced gardeners, and really got us thinking about planting and the future of CLU's garden. Can't wait to see what happens next!

Peace, Love, and Food,

Casey