How To Use This Blog

We have set up this blog as a way to share with the community what we are up to and so members can see what needs to be done in the garden week to week.

How to use this blog:
We will post the to-do's and you simply write in the comments what you will be taking care of so we know it's getting done.
  • After you have entered your comment, simply hit the arrow next to profile, select anonymous and make sure you write your name in the comments section so we know who you are!
  • To make sure you don't miss an update, please enter your email address in the "Get Alerts for New Posts" form on the right column of this blog.

Monday, January 28, 2013

Butterfly Action in the Garden

On Saturday, January 26th, we were in the garden harvesting more lettuce, kale and radishes than I would have thought possible. Very soon we will have pounds of snap peas and beets. I thought it was going to rain, but it was absolutely gorgeous! On our way out, we were admiring a highly scented, flowering shrub in the butterfly garden when we noticed a brand new, just pupated monarch butterfly sitting there in the sun, brandishing his folded up wings and new to the world. Fortunately, we had some cameras and i-phones, so we have great shots of him and his brother Mr. Pupa who you can see hanging to his left! Thank you to Vivian and Kevin Schroder, Skip Zelenka, Lisa Davis, Tom Pease, and Charlotte and Deborah Frank for their help and support.

Don't forget Wednesday, January 30th, 10:30 a.m. is worm farming day in the garden. Come with your questions for vermiculturist Don Smith. I will have my worm inn and we will load it up.
                                          Photo by Vivian Schroder

Skip told us that once monarchs have hatched in a locale, their offspring will return year after year, so we can now expect a steady flow of monarchs to our garden!

Friday, January 25, 2013

Rain in the Garden?

If it's really coming down tomorrow at 10 A.M., we will postpone cookie day with Martha and her girl scouts; however I may go up there anyway just to harvest produce for Monday's food program at All Saints.

Don't forget: on Wednesday, January 30th, 10:30 A.M., Don Smith will be checking up on our worms. I am bringing my home made "worm inn" and I am hoping Don will show me how to load it. I will have a pound of red wigglers with me, donated by the beautiful people at Organic Control. Thank you Paula!!  Love, Barbara (aka garden girl lives here).

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Saturday in the Garden: January 26th, 2013

Join us this coming Saturday: Girl Scout Troop 10885 will be in the garden, harvesting and tending to the compost barrel. Anyone who comes up gets cookies and a beverage as well, since Martha Galvan will be there and she is the first winner of the "10 eatables in the garden contest." We will be there starting at 10 a.m.



Don Smith will join us on Wednesday, January 30th, 10:30 a.m., to inspect our worm farm and answer questions. I will bring up the "worm inn" I've made, and Don will show us how to maintain our worms in a hotel environment. Come up and learn why worms are so important in the landscape.

Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Great Excitement today in the Garden!

On Wednesday, January 16th, we were in the garden harvesting huge bags of kale, spinach, lettuce, beet greens and radishes. Human Relations Commissioner Tom Pease had a great idea for spring. He suggested planting corn on the hill to the west of our grass area. It is now irrigated with a drip system, so it should be quite doable. Jean Rosenblatt suggests that different types of squash will also do well on the hill, so we have that to look forward to.

That was not the exciting thing however. As we were getting ready to leave, one of us spotted a huge, shiny monarch butterfly. As we were admiring him/her, we noticed another, then another, and then probably around a dozen, all zooming around the garden and greenhouse area. Then the coined dropped:  these are the monarch caterpillars that grew up in the butterfly garden over the last several months!! They pupated and must have hatched this morning in the warmer weather.

SHOUT OUT TO JEANNIE COHEN:  Can you go up on Saturday and see if you can photograph any of our babies????

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Lots of Radishes and Kale!

This past Saturday we were up in the garden pruning the butterfly area. We chopped up the pruned branches into 1 inch pieces and fed them to the compost barrel.  I fed the worms. We had a visit from Director of Community Services Steve Zoet, and Parks Manager  Ken Pfalzgraf, and both expressed satisfaction with our efforts. Some of the members of the current Team Beverly Hills also came by to admire (and taste).

Several bags of radishes and kale were harvested, and used on Monday in the free lunch program at All Saints. Thanks to Jessica Emmerson, Skip Zelenka, Lisa Davis, Soozie Eastman for showing up and specially to Jeannie Cohen for all the wonderful photography. I'm planning to use some of her images to apply for a grant for our garden area.

I will be up there tomorrow, January 15th, fertilizing the butterfly garden. See you!
Ken and Soozie

Skip demonstrating the proper way to
chop your compost

Lots of yummy greens


Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Saturday, January 12th in the Garden

Join me this Saturday the 12th, 10:30 a.m. to continue pruning the shrubs in the butterfly garden, please bring your kitchen scraps (peels, grounds, old fruit) for the worm farm. I'm going to bring up some newspaper, if there are a few people to help we can mulch the 2 new beds. They have been invaded a bit by some grass seed, and we can help by mulching between the rows with newspaper, then covering the paper with compost, which I already have up there in bags.

I hope to see you up there!. Following are a few shots taken by Jeannie Cohen last Saturday. Our garden is doing so well! Barb Linder




Thursday, January 3, 2013

Already a winner!

Introducing Martha Galvan, first qualifier for tea and cookies up at Greystone! Following are photographs of her home vegetable garden. Here is the list she has submitted:  sage, thyme, peppermint, sorrel, spinach, chard, carrots, curry, lemons, mandarins, chives, greek oregano, oregano, rosemary, camomile, leeks, chilis.



Martha and the scout troop she mentors, Troop 10885, will be coming up to the garden in late winter/early spring to help turn over the beds for spring planting. I hope other readers will submit their lists of home garden edibles, remember there's tea and cookies in it! 

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Saturday, January 5 in the Garden

This is the time to start thinking about pruning. If you are planning to be in the demonstration garden this coming Saturday, and you know something about pruning, please get the clippers out of our shed (combination is 0070) and shape the bigger shrubs in the butterfly garden. Watch out for the broken glass in the little pond area.

Other chores:  please give the compost barrel a "turn".  Feel free to harvest and keep kale and radishes.

I worked in the garden today (Wednesday Jan. 2d) and everything looks really good. I harvested kale and radishes to take to the All Saints Food Program on Monday. The peas are just starting to bloom, so we can look forward to peas later this month. I gave the new beds a nitrogen feed (greens need a lot of nitrogen) and weeded. It looked as though some grass seed had blown in with the high winds we had.

Our mint hyssop (agastache) had gone to seed, so I scattered some along the edges of the new beds. It is very good for keeping deer and rodents away. I took some home to germinate so that we will know the seedlings from weeds.

The worms looked healthy; I fed them and misted them. Please email me or comment in the blog if you notice anything in the garden you want to tell me about. <blinder01@roadrunner.com>