We started out on April 1st, no joke, our first meeting. Bare ground, just slightly tilled, once. Since then we met on an almost weekly basis, 8 times so far.
During our first 2 sessions we added a couple wheelbarrow loads of aged horse manure to our plots and direct seeded radishes and snap peas as well as seeded a lot of herbs, tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins in our beautiful greenhouse.
At first it was just us but soon the “young entrepreneurs farmers” appeared starting to turn their bigger parcels into future productive plots.
By mid May our highly motivated instructors Jenn and Jen established the irrigation of our plots and we didn’t have to water by hand anymore. We have spray irrigation for our individual beds and drip irrigation for the solanaceae and curcubitaceae families like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers.
And our first real harvest: radishes!
Because we have a couple surplus plots we have quite a few shared beds for tomatoes, potatoes, raspberries, strawberries, composting herbs, culinary herbs.
The kids planted tons of sunflowers on the mount of soil that was pushed up to create a flat surface for the green house and around their circular hideaway that will be framed by climbing cucumbers.
They are doing all sorts of creative stuff and even painted individual signs for our gardening plots and just enjoy the space to roam and be on the land.
We learned about companion planting, crop rotation, and pests which are evident in flea beetles, the caterpillars of the cabbage moth, wire worms, and possibly some slugs.
More than one evening we have worked until dark to finish up something and get it ready for nature to do its magic. The latest one 2 weeks ago when we had to install rabbit netting to protect our baby plants. We are slowly starting to become a community too through our get togethers.
And a well deserved evening stroll across the fields to visit the newly moved in sheep that are helping us fertilize the ground and eat up dominant not so beneficial grasses.
The soil is pretty heavy neglected clay soil and in need of rehabilitation. Especially next to our plots where the road for the racetracks used to be. This is where we planted our squashes and cucumbers last week.
Raking up soil into mounds first we framed them with rough sheep manure from the “Fickle Fig” sheep across the street, topped them up with compost, planted our started plants, and mulched with straw. Easy but effective and quick! The plants are warmed during cooler nights by the straw and manure as well as moisture will be retained. Not Butchart Gardens but so functional with very little hard gardening required.
We talked about permaculture too last week and how Mother Earth covers everything leaving no bare soil exposed. So excited to see how our space will look like this summer and in future years to come.