The Community Garden, July 2022
Hello, gardening friends! Our little community garden is going along strong so I thought I'd make an update. The above picture is a wider view from above, so you can get a better idea of our setup in the courtyard. It's quite nice!
I have PUMPKIN PLANTS! After starting some indoors and then learning the hard way that they don't like their roots to be disturbed (which I learned when I tried to transplant them), I started again directly sowing seeds in my garden box and they are doing well now. :)
My statues are watching over the patch of scarlet clover. :)
I have a bunch of volunteers in the box aside from what I planted intentionally, and now that they've grown for a month, I can see that most of the volunteers are trees of heaven, even though I went through the soil picking out about ten bajillion seeds at the start of the season. So I have to do some weeding, but I didn't do that today. It's on my to do list now, though. Some of the other volunteers are grasses because someone put a bird feeder right near my box and a boatload of seeds fell in. I also picked out a ton of those, but I know I didn't get all of them.
Over on this side I have turnips and tomatoes (and all those tree of heaven seedlings).
I'm so glad we have a community garden now. How are your gardens doing?
I LOVE THIS!
What a wonderful Garden. I had never heard that about Pumpkin. In fact, I follow many gardeners on Youtube, and many of them plant Pumpkin indoors in late winter, and transplant the seedlings outside, in spring. I do as well, and my Pumpkin seem to be doing OK!
That first one in line, lower left, is the Pumpkin. I started it, March 1st, indoors.
Did you start it in that bag/pot? Or in a decomposing pot so that you didn't have to take it out? Or did you start it in a smaller thing that you had to take it out of to replant in the bigger one? Because when I had just moved them and several started dying off, I was reading a gardening article about growing pumpkins and that's where they said that they don't like their roots disturbed. And I was like ...oh shit. xD
I start them in these containers, and transplant them:
those are cucumber, but I do my pumpkin, squash and watermelon all the same way.
Huh! You had better luck than I did!
Good tip - I might get on this today - just after midwinter here!
@riverflows for me, I seed start peppers about 8-10 weeks before LAST FROST. I seed start tomato 6-8 weeks before last frost. Cucumber, Squash, Zucchini, Melon, etc about 6 weeks before last frost date. All indoors, all under grow lights, and all on a heat mat, for warmth.
Fantastic. Thanks so much for sharing - that's really useful! We have a much longer growing season here and I do have the polytunnel but I think I'd do some indoors with the heat pad as I have my mushroom grow martha inside anyway. I have found I get awesome results growing the capsicums (as we call pepperes here) in the polytunnel in wicking buckets - they get more water and heat there and fertiliser too than the garden proper. I wouldnt have a clue when our last frost is ahha...well, probs September sometime so if I rewind six weeks from there that'll be on the money for getting seeds in in the next fortnight before I go back to work! but all i know is I'm sorting out seeds and potting mix and tidying up ready to get them in soonish is some form!
We get last frost 1st of May (average) and first frost mid to late October... about 175 growing days for much. Some, like my potato, and some cold weather greens, I can grow later or earlier.
Our winters can have a meter or more of snow, and at times, well below -20ºC
Your winters are crazy. We rarely have snow near me - it's a thrill if there is, and we drive to find it altitude (up in the mountains it's a great ski season). My jalapenos are STILL ripening in the polytunnel and it's gone mid winter now! I mean, I'm cold - but minimum -5 is super rare and days get to more like 12 ish and we're all moaning it's cold! Which it is, for us. A metre of snow in my garden is just inconcievable to me. Like, mindblowing.
Pumpkins take up a huge amount of space, the vines grow like crazy. You can reposition the vines maybe once a week to encourage them to grow in directions you want them to spread to, but the vines tend to be brittle so you have to have a gentle touch.
GTK about the brittleness. I was thinking I would have to try to train them to not run down the path, perhaps up on the wall ledge or something. :D We shall see!
Fantastic work. This year I haven't grown anything except my grass. But I'd like to add something. This gets me thinking about it.
Every little bit counts! :)
That's truly awesome! #WayToGrow
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Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:
Wow it looks great - totally transformed a boring space into something far more pretty! Glad your neighbours like it to - are they all inspired to contribute?
Well, several of us do - I'm not exactly sure how many because I don't know who all the smaller pots belong to, like, are those people who also have a box, or additional people who are just using pots but in the same garden area? There are also some folks who have planters up on the railings higher up in the courtyard (I'd like to do that too but haven't had the money to go buy railing pots). Many more of us also have plants on our balconies, but I genuinely don't know how many of us are gardening in the courtyard. :)
A couple downstairs used to garden two whole plots (the bigger areas that our garden boxes and pots are in) that beautified a whole section of the courtyard, and there are of course plants still there now that are perennials, but they haven't done their usual big planting of additional annuals this year; however, I know that they have been living through the remodel of their apartment rather than switching apartments like I did, so I think that's why, it must be exhausting for them!
So several neighbors do contribute. I think it's more likely those of us who have lived here a while, whereas some tenants are just in and out for one year or something.
That's pretty cool. I think sometimes it's a 'build it and they will join in' thing - people like to see it in action before they shyly start to contribute, knowing the benefit. At the very least the reward is sometimes in just doing it and people appreciating it even if they don't join in.
Yeah I was telling one neighbor she could ask the super about getting a box, and she was like, oh no, I have a black thumb, I just admire from afar, lol. So not everyone joins in but they can still appreciate it!
It gives me a lot of peace of mind just looking at these pictures 😍
It really has made the courtyard a much more peaceful place to be!
Wow, beautiful sight here.
Everyone is keeping such lovely garden and green lives.
Look at that stature, a sure guide 😀.
You have done pretty well and I hope you have the time to weed it out soon.
Thank you! :)