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.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

Saturday in the Garden: June 1st, 2013

This coming Saturday I will be in the garden at 10:30. Last week our student volunteer Eddie distributed our barrel of ripe compost to the tomato plants, so I will be checking up on their progress. Leyhun reported some progress on our hill plantings, so there may be some watering to do: it's going to be quite warm this weekend.

Here are a couple of photos from last Saturday: Ellen Lutwak did two good things at once, she rode her bike up to help us in the garden! Go Ellen. I invite any of you Saturday bicyclists to join us. Barb Linder

Friday, May 24, 2013

Tomorrow, May 25

Hi Everyone, Just a reminder that I will be in the garden tomorrow, around 10:00 a.m.
Barb L.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The garden went inside

On Saturday morning May 18th, I started out in the garden with student volunteer Eddie Mack. He did a great job tending to our compost, turning and watering it. Then he planted some drought resistant flower seeds on the hillside. We packed up some compost and the worm farm and went down the hill to All Saints Beverly Hills, where we talked to a group about the hows and whys of composting at home, and also introduced them to the worms. It was very funny, because at the beginning the children were all "EWWW, they look like snakes" and by the end of the day they were naming them and taking them home in paper cups to start their own worm farms! On Wednesday evening, May 29th, I will be speaking at All Saints with a panel discussing the rise of communal gardening in our city and what it has meant to me as an individual.

This coming Saturday, May 25th, we will be in the garden around 10:00. Eddie will be helping us again. Girl Scout Troop 10885 may be doing an experiment in the garden soon to see if we can keep the ground squirrels at bay. Stay tuned. See you in the garden. Barb Linder (aka garden girl lives here).

PHOTOS BY JEANNIE COHEN







Friday, May 17, 2013

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

Just to let you know, I will be in the garden at 10 a.m. with our student volunteer Eddie. Barb L

Saturday, May 18th, 2013

This past Wednesday, Lisa Davis and I consulted with groundskeeper Javier Venegas. He feels that the snail problem is starting to abate; however we also have a ground squirrel problem in the beds. I have changed the setting on our garden monitors to a higher frequency to see if that will help to keep the varmints out of the beds. If that doesn't work, Javier says that fencing is probably the only effective deterrent, and I don't think that fencing will work with the raised beds as it would make access very difficult and I'm also not sure how "the city" would feel about it. So, wait and see I suppose.

Tomorrow, our high school helper Eddie will be in the garden. He has been collecting compost ingredients at home this week, which will go in the shed for now. He will be turning over the compost pile, planting some flower seeds on the hill, and doing bed maintenance. I don't know what time yet, so I will send a supplemental blog entry tomorrow morning.

Also tomorrow, I will be doing a compost, worm farm, and grapefruit rind demonstration at All Saints Church on Camden and Santa Monica Blvd. Volunteers from the church who helped us plant last month were very interested in learning how to compost, so I'm going to help them learn how.

See you in the garden! Barb L.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Community Service in the Garden

This past Saturday we had a very hard working high school student in the garden. He planted a couple of milkweed plants in the butterfly garden, helped to straighten out the hill area and did snail patrol in the raised beds. His name is Eddy, and he'll be back each Saturday the rest of the month.

If you know a student who needs community service hours, have him/her contact me via the gmail account; I am happy to have their help!

I will be in the garden Wednesday morning, around 10 a.m. We need to keep the myriads of snails out of the beds, they are wreaking havoc.
HOW TO PLANT A NEW PLANT, DEMONSTRATED BY EDDY
Dig a hole as deep as the root ball and twice as wide
 Gently roll the plastic pot, loosening the root ball
 Tip the plant out, use a shovel to divide and flatten the root ball
 Fill the planting hole with water and allow it to drain
Put in your new plant, backfill with the original soil; it is not recommended to add new soil or amendments. 

Thursday, May 9, 2013

May 11th in the Garden (Saturday)

This coming Saturday I will be mentoring a local high school student in the garden. He needs a certain number of hours of community service and has asked to work for us! I have worked up a list of tasks for him, to include compost maintenance, weeding, planting some replacement seeds and plants (we've had some snail predation), and caring for the butterfly pond. I'm also going to try to think up some "homework" for him. Please join us, from 10:30 till around noon.

The City gardening staff feels that snails are doing some crop damage, and have kindly sprinkled a border of organic snail bait around the beds. The hill plantings have been very badly hit up, and I will probably start planting some ceanothus and flower seeds on the hill, as vegetables may not be a doable project there. Flexibility is an important skill to learn when gardening. On the up side, the butterfly border is doing spectacularly, and all of the plants are starting to bloom. Today I'm going to go look for milkweed plants so that we will be ready for monarchs this summer. See you in the garden!

Friday, May 3, 2013

Next week in the garden

Remember, this weekend, May 4th and 5th, the City is having a special car show event up at Greystone, and we will not be able to access the garden.

I will be up there on Wednesday, May 8th, right around 10:30. Please join me to see how our young vegetables are faring after all the warm weather. Have a great weekend! Barb Linder