Planting Winter Crops

Are you thinking about planting one or more winter crops? Here is some guidance from Territorial Seed for summer/fall planting to ensure winter/spring harvests. http://www.territorialseed.com/product/14053

News Letter Vol1, Issue 3

August 2012                                                                                                                                       Vol. #1, Issue #3

Well, our collective harvest this year has passed 3000 pounds!!   Many thanks to all of you who are a part of this project – for the community you’ve created, as well as the community you are serving.   In this issue of the newsletter, we’re asking you to set aside a Saturday morning in September to help keep our greenhouse project on schedule, as well as make a decision on how we handle the “gleaning” of crops ready for harvest.

Crop Report:   Year-to-date, we have logged over 3000 pounds of produce harvested, with over 2700 of this donated to Lakes FISH, Steilacoom and Thurston County food banks.   This is 800 pounds more than we did last year at the same period!!   See chart below for cumulative harvest report.  Now is the right time to plant a fall crop, or over-wintering crop – garlic, carrots, leeks, kale are all hardy enough to over-winter.

New greenhouse construction:   the framing of the four walls and roof trusses was completed this week.   Watch a 30-second time-lapse video of a month’s worth of work here  http://youtu.be/U1Y0GYXjO6o .    Next steps are to roll out the weed barrier on the ground, and construct and fill the ten raised-beds.  We need many hands to do this work – please save the date of September 22^nd for a morning of assembling wood frames, heating and irrigation lines, as well as shoveling and spreading lots of topsoil in the beds. 

Please make a gleaning choice for your plot:    for most gardeners, keeping on top of your harvests throughout the entire season is a challenge – especially during vacations, or in August when two days’ growth can turn a perfect squash into a giant torpedo, or tomatoes drop and split.    This year we are instituting a policy where gardeners who see crops in other beds that are overdue for harvest, can do so before it goes too far past.   If you pick something from another bed for the donation cooler, be absolutely sure you’ve recorded the harvest tag completely, so that plot and plot-owner’s yield is accurate.   If you know you’ll be away from the garden and want someone specifically to glean your harvest-ready crop, put your name/plot# on the sign-up sheet (in the tool-shed and by the scale in the greenhouse).  You can also opt-out of this gleaning policy – if it’s not okay with you to have your harvest-ready produce gleaned, you can put a “DO NOT GLEAN” stake in your plot.   These red stakes are located on the table in the shed as well as by the scale in the greenhouse.

At-home volunteer needed:    we bid a sad but grateful goodbye to Carmen and John P., who are being re-posted to Texas next month.   In addition to their gardening, Carmen maintained regular updates to the IDCG Facebook page and Blogspot.   We need a volunteer willing to add a couple of posts per month, so that our public web-presence is up-to-date.  Please contact Stu if you are willing to do this.

Saving work for food-bank volunteers and deliverers:   How you bag and tag your produce donations really matters to the IDCG gardeners who make the deliveries to the food banks, as well as to the food bank employees.    We have bagged, tagged and boxed over 800 separate harvests, and some of you use a lot of tape on the tags.   A one-inch strip on the top is all that is needed, and makes it easier to remove.   Also, please do not put a double-knot in the bag when it goes into the cooler; the food bank volunteers wear latex gloves, and it saves time if you don’t use a double-knot.    A special thanks to Holly Wickenhagen, TJ Bolen, Dennis Clarke, Stephanie Gonzalez, and Kristin Paul for making our Lakewood FISH deliveries this summer.

Happy Gardening!!  Save the morning of September 22 for a work event, and email Stu if you can take over the IDCG Facebook page and Blogspot.

Donated Seeds for 2012!

Thank you Territorial Seed Company, Tomato Bob and Johnny's Seeds for donating to our community garden this year!  Your donated seeds will help grow food for the food banks we deliver to!

The seeds have been organized, so growers please be kind and keep the seeds tidy for the next person.

Enjoy!

2012 March Build Day!

In February we managed to get all of D-row dressed with compost and four beds constructed in A-row.  Let's finish our work, top-dress the beds and construct four more A-row beds!

Who: Intel DuPont Community Garden
What: Construction of raised vegetable beds, cleaning out of winter-weeds in current beds, top-dress soil from compost piles.
When: Saturday, March 24th 2012 – from 1300 to 1600.
Where: 2800 Center Drive, DuPont WA 98327
Why: IDCG supports local food banks by growing and donating organic produce. In 2011 we harvested 4,700 pounds of produce, which 4,200 was donated to food banks in Lakewood, Steilacoom, and Olympia.

For the service members: Last year one JBLM service member earned their Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal by working in the garden on build days, weeding and growing produce for the community. Your hours of service can be recorded and submitted to your chain of command for the same purpose.

For teenagers who need community service hours for graduation, this is a great opportunity to earn some hours. There will be more opportunities in the future for weeding and building. Contact the email below for details.

For attendance please bring: your tools such as wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, and battery-powered driver-drills.

RSVP here or to IDCG.volunteercoordinator@live.com. More volunteer opportunities in the future!

You too can help feed the community. Join our blogspot!

Garden Contacts

If you need to contact someone from the garden's organizing team about any topic, we'd like to provide you with a list of names and way to get email to them.  If you don't see a topic you're interested in, just send to the General link, and we'll get you an answer.

General: Stu Vannerson

Operations: Bill Fishburn

Composting Manager: Bernie Short

Volunteer Coordinator: Carmen Pease

Blogspot and Newsletter Coordinator: Carmen Pease

Food Bank Deliveries: Stu Vannerson (Thurston County), Avery Enderby (Pierce County)

Communications: Cara Mitchell

New Member Recruitment/Orientation: TBD (We need a volunteer for this)

Maintenance and Construction: Gurbir Singh

Planting and Harvest Tracking: Stu Vannerson

Bed Subscriptions: Dan Coverdale
Social Media Coordinator: Kirsten Hansen

Garden Beds Available for 2012

We are now taking request for 2012 open beds!  We added four new beds this year and we are adding four more soon.

Full Outdoor Bed	5 ft x 24 ft	$50.00
Full Greenhouse Bed	4 ft x 14 ft	$50.00
Half Outdoor Bed	5 ft x 12 ft	$25.00
Half Greenhouse Bed	4 ft x 7 ft	$25.00
Child's Garden Box	3 ft x 3 ft	Free - One per family

Please click here to send an email.  Include what type of bed you are interested in.  Remember our mission is to grow organic produce, and we donate half of everything we grow to our food bank partners.  When we harvest we have a convenient location on site for your produce; we make the drop off trip for you!  Available beds are first-come-first-served, so send in your request today before they are all gone!

Gardening in the PNW

The heart of the Intel DuPont Community Garden members never cease to amaze me.  Last Saturday morning was almost as bad as it could get with the weather.  It poured rain, the wind was blowing, and it was cold!  Nevertheless almost 30 people showed up to put together garden beds, clear debris, top-dress beds with compost and various other chores.  We worked hard and made jokes to keep it light while the rain came down.

That morning we were able to get four new beds constructed and ready for spring.  One student helping in the construction, from Lakes High Schools Earth Club, braved the weather in hopes to be educated in constructing a raised-bed-garden.  The Garden Club intends on using this education to create a proposal for their own raised-bed-garden located on school grounds.  It feels great to inspire young minds!

Despite the weather it was a great time with friends.  Thank you to all who came out.  Let's do it again soon. ;)

2012 February Build Day!

Who: Intel DuPont Community Garden
What: Construction of raised vegetable beds, cleaning out of winter-weeds in current beds, top-dress soil from compost piles.
When: Saturday, February 18th 2012 – from 0900 to 1200.
Where: 2800 Center Drive, DuPont WA 98327
Why: IDCG supports local foodbanks by growing organic healthy food. In 2011 we harvested 4,700 pounds of produce, which 4,200 was donated to foodbanks in Lakewood, Steilacoom and Olympia.

For the service members: Last year one JBLM service member earned their Military Outstanding Volunteer Service Medal by working in the garden on build days, weeding and growing produce for the community. Your hours of service can be recorded and submitted to your chain of command for the same purpose.

For teenagers who need community service hours for graduation, this is a great opportunity to earn some hours. There will be more opportunities in the future for weeding and building. Contact the email below for details.

For attendance please bring: your tools such as wheelbarrows, shovels, rakes, and battery-powered driver-drills.

RSVP to IDCG.volunteercoordinator@live.com. More volunteer opportunities in the future!

You too can help feed the community!

Feedback From the Foodbank

Focus on the Goal
Feedback From the Food Bank

When growing food for others, consider the following when planning your 2012 crops.

Very Popular:

• Tomatoes - will take all that can be grown.
• Cabbage - good but smaller is better.
• Potatoes - reds only
• Carrots - very popular
• Peppers - bells are especially popular
• Onion - both yellow and red
• Broccoli - do more, popular and continuous
• Corn - very popular

 Do More:

• Cilantro
• Shallots
• Basil
• Chives
• Raspberries
• Cucumber
• Cauliflower
• Sugar Snap Peas
• Strawberries
• Spinach 

 

Feedback Foods:

• Kale - do all Italian variety, not Russian
• Greenbeans - do less, the food bank gets plenty from other sources
• Zucchini - harvest smaller, do less
• Squash - pick small

Unpopular - Do less:

• Okra - not popular
• Rutabaga - not popular
• Beets - not popular
• Turnips - not popular
• Dry Beans - NO