Our very first TUESDAY TALK!

About a dozen folks showed up last night for a tour of two of our gardens with Mike Carr--gardening extraordinaire! We followed Mike through the rows as he exaplined what was happening in the gardens and answered our questions about everything from planting to harvesting to pests.

So... here's what we learned:

Keeping Foods: Beats can be harvested and stored in a cool dry place to last over the colder months for local easting out-of-season! Onions need to be hung to dry or laid-out in a sunny, dry spot for a few days.

Replanting: Certain crops such as carrots, spinach, radish, lettuce, peas, bok choy, kohlrabi, kale should be planted throughout the summer as they are quick growers. Ideally, every two weeks you should be doing some planting in your garden throughout the summer. Whenever you notice that seeds are not taking (after a few days) you should plant more seeds. If there are spaces, fill 'em up! We still have a few days to do some replanting and ended the evening last night with some spinach planting.

Harvesting: Onions should be harvested once the greens turn yellow and start to wither. Potatoes can begin to be harvested once the blossoms are finished--your first potatoes will be small and thin-skinned. Continue harvesting as the summer goes on and into the fall.

Corn Pollination: Corn should be grown in large blocks for pollination purposes. Pollination occurs via wind thus it is important to clump large amounts of corn together.

Pests: Potato beetles. They lay small orange eggs in the leaves of the potatoes and need to be squashed when found. Take a look through your potatoes and get rid of them as soon as possible. The cucumber beetle has yellow and black sripes and can be delt with by covering your plants with a plaster cover. The cucumber loves the heat anyway and will not be bothered by that pesky insect!

Late-Season-Planting: Broccoli, cauliflower and kale can all be planted later in the summer

Seed Saving: Peppers & tomatoes are easy seed savers. Try smearing tomato pulp onto a paper towel and leaving it to dry for really quick seed saving.

Pruning: Tomatoes need to be pruned for "suckers" (tiny buds that form in the "arm pits" of your tomato plant). This way the plant won't get out of control (like ours have!)

Check out the Gardens!

Here are two of our gardens plotted out:

SPIN farming in Saskatoon

I just found an interesting, short documentary about a visit by a CBC producer (Sean Prpick) to Saskatoon to meet the father of SPIN-Farming, Wally Satzewich. SPIN stands for Small, Plot, INtensive farming. Wally’s idea to densely plant crops in available urban spaces, like backyards and abandoned lots, has caught on all over the world. Wally’s crops are spread out over 25 half-a-dozen residential backyard garden plots that he rents from homeowners, plus land he owns himself.

This approach definitely has some parallels to the Landless Gardeners and I'm sure we could all learn a thing or two! Below is the link to the page and the mp3. Check it out:


http://www.cbc.ca/spark/2009/05/sneak-peek-spin-farming-in-saskatoon/

Still plotting...

Last Saturday saw an enthusiastic crew descend on our two newest plots to till the soil and add copious amounts of manure. The work was made easier by the use of Mr. Langille's tiller, as the machine ate through sod to leave us with healthy (and hopefully fertile) soil.

Now that the beds are formed, there's just one more important thing to do... plant something! The next step is to plant seeds and transplants at three of the four gardens on Saturday June 13 at 9:30am , starting at the garden on the corner of Church and George.

In light of this project being a learning experience for many of us first-time gardeners, it's only appropriate to share some of the lessons learned.
Among the lessons learned:
1) The benefits of gardening do not extend to immunity from sunburn. Wear sunscreen.
2) It's okay to be knee-deep in sh!t, so long as you're gardening. (Your vegetables will thank you for it.)
4) Roto-tillers save many hours of (wo)manual labour. Try to make friends with people who own roto-tillers.
3) A long day is best finished drinking a cold beer with friends.

As for next Saturday, we'd love to see you out! Even if you've never joined the Landless Gardeners before, you're welcome to meet us at the corner of Church and George to dig in and get planting. We've got the equipment, just bring yourself.

Plot One: Up and Running!

Greetings from the garden!

The Landless Gardeners have found land! We spent our first Saturday on the Church Street plot with shovels and pitch forks turning over sod to prepare the ground for a summer of growing food.



As the old saying goes, many hands make for light work, and that certainly has been the case over the last couple of weeks. Gardeners have been showing up in droves to get their hands dirty and now we've got something to show for all of that digging. The plot is now planted with a variety of veggies--cucumber, tomatoes, peppers, beans, peas, carrots, onions... (check out our garden map).

We had a lot of fun experimenting in the garden and getting some helpful hints from a veggie guru. We learned a few things:

- Tomatoes, peppers, eggplant (and other veggies, we're sure) need to be started early indoors.
- It is too late to start indoor plants now for our climate in New Brunswick so we're going to have to plan our other plots accordingly by planting veggies that can just be started in the ground.
- Transplants (we did aquire some tomatoe, eggplant, and pepper plants) need to be heavily watered after being planted in the ground
- ... and Alpaca poo is a great fertilizer to pump up the soil!



After our day in the dirt on Saturday, a few of the Landless Gardeners headed over to Renaissance College to take part in a "round table" discussion on food security in Canada. Alex Atamanenko, agriculture critic for the NDP, has been travelling the country talking with communities and getting input on what food and agriculture issues are on the minds of Canadians. There was discussion on GMO foods, the biofuel industry, international trade, food labelling, conventional and organic farming. Afterwards, Mr. Atamanenko took time to visit our plot and hear about what the Landless Gardeners are doing in Fredericton.

Overall, it was a great weekend for food growers!


We would like to invite anyone interested to our next meeting: Tuesday May 25, 7:00 p.m. on the lawn at Renaissance College (811 Charlotte Street). If its raining, come meet us at the Lunar Rogue. Hope to see you there!

The Landless Gardeners

Fredericton, meet the Landless Gardeners

This post is going to end by talking about building a community of local citizens. A networked group of people to have fun, share their experiences and knowledge about growing food in the city. One of the many purposes is to share efforts and create a welcoming atmosphere where people can learn while doing. The benefits--in terms of exercise, participation, nutritious food, friendships and fun--are all easy to talk about and important points.

But we are going to start by talking about our name.



Names can be important and we wanted ours to be informal, informative and relevant. We wanted to suggest two things when hearing it: That there is a number (we hope large) of people who want to grow food and that there is a shortage of land set aside for the purposes of growing food. With all of the land (lawn) space in the city, our thinking went, perhaps some people in the community would, if they thought the idea to be good, allow a portion of their lawn to be planted with food?

The basic setup we propose is:

1. Allow us a small plot of your front yard
2. At harvest time, you as provider of the land, get 10% of the food grown.

There is absolutely no requirement for the person who donates the land to do any of the gardening work although of course it is not prohibited!

What we provide is:

1. All of the materials and labour.
2. A rain barrel positioned under a down spout to collect water.
3. Beautiful vegetables!

Our hope at the end of the season is to have a block party where we cook the food and invite the neighborhood to celebrate with us a successful grow season. We want to have as much involvement of people as is practical. We are an all ages, all levels of experience group. We have people participating who have tended gardens their whole lives as well as those who are have never grown any type of plant at all! So if you walk by and see us at a plot and have suggestions, advice, or just want to check on what we are doing please feel free to stop and talk!

Of all the things we want to do -- have fun, grow food, learn skills, exercise -- it is the community of people that we hope will form and the friendships made that will last longer than any of the produce we grow.

For anyone curious about our plans or has an idea for us please contact us a landlessgardeners@gmail.com or post a comment on the blog.

Happy growing season,

the Landless Gardeners