IDCG Newsletter: Part 2
We are posting excerpts from our newsletter in this space over the next couple weeks. Here's our second installment.
Time to Plant !
March is upon us - time to start thinking about the 2014 planting season!
When planning your plot and activities for the spring, think about these questions:
When planning your plot and activities for the spring, think about these questions:
- What does my family like to eat?
- What do food-bank clients use the most of?
- How much time do I have for planting, weeding, and harvesting?
- Does my soil need amendment or my bed need mending?
Then, with your plan in hand, you can start the process of buying or ordering seeds (there are some available in the shed at IDCG), starting some veggies indoors (beets,
broccoli, turnips, lettuce, peppers, etc.), and even sowing some hardy veggies and herbs outside, such as radishes, green onion sets, and soup peas.
For excellent month-by-month advice on how to garden in our area, check out 'The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide', by Seattle Tilth. A copy is in our tool shed, and can also be ordered from Amazon. If you want to use the copy in the IDCG tool shed, please remember to leave it there so others can use it too.
Another source of timely, local gardening info is the Seattle Urban Farm's gardening newsletter, available online at
broccoli, turnips, lettuce, peppers, etc.), and even sowing some hardy veggies and herbs outside, such as radishes, green onion sets, and soup peas.
For excellent month-by-month advice on how to garden in our area, check out 'The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide', by Seattle Tilth. A copy is in our tool shed, and can also be ordered from Amazon. If you want to use the copy in the IDCG tool shed, please remember to leave it there so others can use it too.
Another source of timely, local gardening info is the Seattle Urban Farm's gardening newsletter, available online at
Composting
To make our garden operations more sustainable, we focused a lot of attention on composting in 2013. The most visible part of that was our September request to all gardeners to compost their leafy plant waste individually in their own beds, rather than create a giant plant-waste pile. Several folks who tried this!have seen good results. Some turned the material into their soil, while others chopped it and covered it with plastic or mulch.
We will try this again in 2014 and recently received a large supply of burlap bags from a coffee roaster in Sumner.! Help yourself to these - they are stacked in Greenhouse 1.
On a larger scale we built an aerated compost digesting bin that helped us mulch some of more stalky plants and vines after shredding. This has worked well and we will be building two more such bins to consume the accumulated waste in the garden.
We will try this again in 2014 and recently received a large supply of burlap bags from a coffee roaster in Sumner.! Help yourself to these - they are stacked in Greenhouse 1.
On a larger scale we built an aerated compost digesting bin that helped us mulch some of more stalky plants and vines after shredding. This has worked well and we will be building two more such bins to consume the accumulated waste in the garden.
Pierce County has given us a grant to encourage us with this composting effort and also provide information to other gardeners from the result of our efforts.
Up Coming Events
We start the 2014 season with an excellent line-up of work and social activities planned for the coming month.
March 8, Saturday: A panel of our leading gardeners will share their secrets of success with you and answer any questions, related to gardening or operation of the IDC Garden. We also have a work party planned for that day to clean up the garden and prepare for the Spring planting. This activity will start at 9 AM with the panel.
March 13, Thursday, Noon: Marianne Binetti will share her gardening tips. Marianne, the Compleat Home Gardener, is a northwest horticultural expert, who writes a regular column for The Olympian/Tacoma News Tribune. Her website is:
March 21, Friday, Noon: Ciscoe Morris, a local gardening celebrity, will dole out advice on gardening and answer questions as he does on his weekly radio show "Gardening with Ciscoe" on 97.3 FM Kiro radio. He also appears on numerous TV shows including "Gardening with Ciscoe". Ciscoe was head of the Seattle University Grounds Department in the 1980s and began a transformation that has made the university a model for ecological gardening.
These two speaker presentations will be held in the Intel DP-2 building and those interested in attending should go to the lobby for further details and guidance.
Looking ahead, Mother Earth News will be holding a fair in the Puyallup Fairgrounds May 31st and June 1st. The organizers have graciously offered several pairs of deeply discounted tickets for the two days, to members of our Community Garden. If you would like to take advantage of this offer please contact Bill Fishburn via email.
You can learn more about the Mother Earth News Fairs from their website at:
