Lush hill

The garden is looking wonderful.

I find it very cool to see a lush garden growing out from the top of a hill that used to be just mowed grass. So much potential.

Japanese Beetles

I noticed last weekend that there were some beetles eating my basil. Then they went to the beans and the edamame. It turns out that they are japanese beetles.

Online, I read that you could use various poisons and then the good stuff:

strong coffee

catnip 

chives

soapy water

Somehow when we garden there is this thought that comes to mind - spray them. 

I mixed 16 ounces of water with 2 tablespoons of dish soap in a spray bottle. It does the trick. The japanese beetles fall right off after a minute or two.

Other gardeners have reported that they flick them to the ground or in a bucket of soapy water.

It all seems to work and since they are most active during the day - and a bright copper color - you can see them, spray or flick them and eat your food later. But it looks like if you leave them alone, they can do some real damage.

Lots of Greens

Clare and Helen came by this afternoon and harvested a big armload of collard greens. We took them home, washed, chopped, blanched and froze.

Note the lush garden in the background.

Gate Installation

Final construction of the gate took place at Don & Leigh's house. Emmet, Clare and Sophia helped with driving screws.

The gate was made with 100% used lumber. Posts leftover from some park project. The door was from Bob's scrap pile. The hardware was new, but local and organic.

I assembled it all in my garage and put a 2x4 across the bottom which was buried and a stabilizing piece across the top for transport - see the first picture.

It was a beautiful night for gate raising and with 6 people and 3 generations to dig, it went quickly.

Looking More Like a Garden

A late afternoon walk and this photo. Things are looking great. More greenery all the time.

Something is Eating the Bean Leaves

A creature is on the loose eating up the young bean leaves.

It isn't clear what it is. Some people have reported slugs, others suspect beetles.

I'm covering both bases and using a pyrethrin based (in case it is a beetle) and diatomaceous earth.

So far it seems to be working out.

Does anyone know more?

Cutworms

Over the last week or so there have been a few instances of cutworms killing young tomato plants. I haven't seen them, but the evidence is there. Gardeners have responded to the challenge in a few ways.

Protect the stem. Many have created protective coverings for the stem. Cups, toilet paper rolls, wax paper buried slightly. Apparently the critters slither along the ground, climb plants, but don't climb over obstacles. For more read about controlling cutworms organically on the Simple Gifts Farm website.

Ward them off. We sprinkled diatomaceous earth around our plants. Diatomaceous earth is an organic mechanical pesticide due to its physico-sorptive properties. (did you like that one?)

After the first few kills, it looks like the situation is under control.

Garden Guidelines

The Buhr Community Garden is a new creation. It was initially thought of as a possibility when the Buhr Park Children's Wet Meadow Project was thinking about the future of the park. Years later, Project Grow proposed the idea and was ready to have a public meeting on the topic. Several of us got wind of the idea and with help from Jeannine and some kids, canvassed the neighborhood to get a sense of what people thought.

The general response was quite positive, but several neighbors pointed out that the proposed garden was in their back yard and that they quite enjoyed the view. They didn't want anything that would disrupt their view and sense of a clean park.

At a public meeting in the winter of 2008, attended by about 20 people, we talked about what we hoped for and about what we feared. The compromise was to develop a small garden and to develop guidelines that would emphasize the neighborhood feel. We also wanted to be sensitive to the being good neighbors. 

Here is the Gardener's Agreement that was hashed out between neighbors, Project Grow and the City Parks staff.

Here

Frost Warning!

Frost is in the forecast tonight. I met some others out covering plants for the coming cold weather. Hopefully this is the last of it.

Fence, Compost, and Water Update

I have a few updates, but the gist of it is this: It is time to start gardening!

The fence is in place. Right now the gate is a little flimsy. It is a loose end of the fence that can be put in front of the south end of the garden. Please enter in and out of that temporary gate. John and I plan to get to building a more formal entrance in the near future. The design will likely be based on one of the pictures in an entry on the blog about gates. We went with a 3 foot fence instead of 4 feet because it looked big enough and was less money. Hope it does the trick. We still plan on putting chicken wire along the base of the fence to keep the little critters and diggers out. For now, it should keep dogs, stray walkers and others out.

Thanks to Jeannine, Janardhan, John, Bob, Emmet, Sophia, Leigh, Joan, Clare and Andy for fence construction.

Payment: Andy put the money down, but will hold off on letting you know the full cost until we get chicken wire and gate installed. So far, we're in for about $24 per full plot for fence materials, which is much less than I thought. We still need to build the gate, but that won't add too terribly much.

Compost has been delivered. We got 4 yards of compost delivered. This which translates to a per full plot allotment of 0.5 yards or 13.5 cubic feet. Ready for more???

• A large wheelbarrow holds 6 cubic feet.
• Smaller wheelbarrows hold 4 cubic feet.

So your share is either a little over 2 large wheelbarrows for a full plot or 3 small wheelbarrows for a full plot. Half plots, divide by 2.

The load was dumped in Jeff and Tione's plots - 8S and 8N. Good news for them - they get a little free top dressing.

Cost of the compost was $123 total. (($17/yard*4) + $55 delivery). $15 for a full plot.

Water:  It is raining. And we have enough hose, will obtain a nozzle soon, and await a "water key" to turn on the water from the school.    Two lengths of hose from the school reach the corner of our gardens.  When you want to water, drag the school hose up to the garden, attach the project grow hose to the school hoses, and use the water.  We will decide upon a good spot to hide the "key" with the understanding that the key stays in its hiding place except when in use.  Also, please return the school hose to the outside of the building, close to the water spout when  done.

Garden Gate Pictures

I went for a bike ride this morning and took a few pictures of gates over at County Farm Park.

The sturdier looking ones have wood across the top and bottom with a diagonal cross piece.

A few more design observations:

• 4x4 posts
• chicken wire on the back
• about 3 feet wide

Take a look:

I like the threshold on this one.

First Meeting

An enthusiastic group of gardeners met this evening at the site of our new garden. A nice crowd and a lot of excitement. Excitement about dirt, friends old and new and possibilities.

We discussed the gardening guidelines which stress the idea of a neighborhood garden and keeping things looking good for the neighbors who will look upon the garden out their back windows.

One fence will encircle the garden with one gate at each end. John and Andy will gather more specifics about prices for the fence and ideas about the gates. Feng Shui principles (as understood by John) indicate the formal entrance should be at the south end. More soon. John dug a post hole and declared that "it won't be bad".

We talked about a work day on the weekend of the 10th of May to construct the fence and get started with gardening.

Andy will follow up on getting a load or two of compost dumped in the garden for us to spread, preferably before the fence goes up.

Water for the garden will come from a hose tugged around the southwest corner of Allen School. The school will be donating the water. We'll need a few more lengths of hose to cover the whole garden.