Learning How to Garden
Date: 7/4/2024
Subject: 2024 progress to date for the w4 Community Garden
Discussion: This was a very wet spring requiring retilling and replanting a couple of times as seeds either rotted before germinating or simply were washed away. Most of the planting was accomplished by the end of May. In April we put in our mulch bins (see below).
Also in April we planted 12 blueberry plants, some of which we propagated ourselves in 2023 (see below). These should be producing fruit within three years.
The following are some June/July pictures of some of our crops to show the progress they are making
These and other produce, flowers and herbs are making their way to maturity. At this rate we expect to be posting available products on this website, on the sales shed bulletin board and on the bill board on the main gate by the end of July or early August. As we did last year to keep in sync with the Ledyard food bank we will be picking and posting on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and donating to the Ledyard food bank or the Preston City Congregational Church’s food bank on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings.
Date: 2/20/2024
Subject: 2024 planting plans and projects for the w4 Community Garden
Discussion: It’s time to buy our seeds for 2024. In 2023 we planted the entire fenced in area and donated two to three hundred pounds of fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers to the Ledyard food bank and the Preston City Congregational Church’s food bank. In addition we added solar power to the sales shed. This year we will concentrate our efforts on a smaller variety (see the layout below) and focus on the productivity, especially the tomatoe plants and the cucumber plants. The special projects this year will be putting an irrigation system (see plans below), a small covered sorting and cleaning station, and 2 composting areas featuring a 50 yard fenced in area for each.
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2023 BLOG IS BELOW THIS LINE
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Date: 1/30/2023
Subject: 2023 planting plans
Discussion: Last year was the first year for planting anything but we only planted on about 25% of the space available, planted late because of work on the sales shed (see main webpage for the W 4 Community Garden), and when we did plant in late June we had six weeks of a severe drought with no rain at all. This year we hope to be done planting by the end of May. Last fall we took delivery on over 50 yards of horse manure and added close to 100 yards of leaves from the fall cleanup. In April we will be spreading that and turning it into the ground. We are also working on putting in a well with a solar powered pump and sprinkling system. The layout for this years garden is shown immediately below:
This year we will be concentrating on just managing the planting, harvesting, and selling/donating of crops so this blog will mostly document which plants produced well and which did not with little analysis of what went wrong or ways to improve the situation. There may be exceptions like putting in the well or special preparations for any crops if we do so.
Date: 4/22/2023
Subject: 2023 Plot Preparation and First Plantings
Discussion: Spread about 100 yards of horse manure and leaves compost. Built four 20 foot by 4 foot raised bed gardens and filled them with compost. Rototilled the whole garden. Picked out for tractor buckets of stones. Rototilled the garden a second time. Planted two of the raised beds with yellow and sweet potatoes.
Date: 5/7-14/2023
Subject: Remaining Plantings
Discussion: I planted all of the remaining seeds and plants that I had, which (with few exceptions) were the ones planed back in February. The following are now in the ground and waiting to grow: 2 types of sunflowers, snap dragons, Zinnias, Salvia, Texas Blue Bonnetts, black eyed susans, daisies, Basil, Coriander, Chives, 2 types of mint, Oregano, Chamomile, catnip, Parsley, Rosemary, Calendula, Dill, peas, bush beans, pole beans, cauliflower, cantelope, garlic, okra, arugulah, spinach, radishes, rutebega, parsnips, turnips, sweet potatoes, onions, broccoli, cucumber, yellow summer squash, zuchini, watermelon, leaks, carrots, beets, 2 types of pumpkins, winter squash, yellow potatoes, 2 types of corn, sweet peppers, 2 types of tomatoes, cultivated strawberries, rhubarb, wild strawberries, and seedless grapes. The rhubarb are cuttings from plants my father first put in the ground 70-80 years ago. My neighbor who lives there kindly offered them, and of course I accepted. On the negative side it has been very dry the last 2 weeks. I’ve begun watering the plants I’ve put in but I’m skeptical of the success of the plantings from very small seeds (carrots, parsley, broccoli, etc). I’m very happy with the way the soil is building. Two years ago all I had was a very compact 2-5 inches of very rocky soil on top of several feet of clay. Rototilling, removing rocks, 100 yards of sawdust and leaves one year and 100 yards of leaves and horse manure a second year and I now have 5-8 inches of nice soil with only a few rocks. I had my father’s substantial Ariens rototiller rebuilt. It’s 20 inches wide so I planted some of the corn in rows 36 inches apart, some 30 inches apart, and some 24 inches apart. We’ll see which works best with the 20″ wide rototiller. I bought a misting system to try and propagate blue berries from cuttings of plants I already have. I’ll know if I’m successful by the end of the summer but won’t put them in until next spring. I am still contemplating putting in a well with solar powered pump this year but time is limited as I have several rather big non gardening projects to tend to first ( 2 houses to paint, a roof to replace and running the sawmill 3-4 hours every weekend besides tending the garden and sales shed). Here are a few more pictures:
Date: 1/2/2024
Subject: 2023 Wrap Up
The W4 Community Garden Sales shed is now completed. Spent over 180 hours and several thousand and have the solar power and camp fire sales wracks (slab wood) in place.
I spent about 550 hours and a couple thousand on planting (seeds, fruit bushes, herbs, flowers, etc). The following donations were made to the Ledyard or Preston City Congregational Church food banks: 10 Cherry Tomatoes qt bags, 10 chili peppers, 73 ears of corn, 74 small cucumbers, 23 large cucumbers, 9 extra large cucumbers, 17 decorative pumpkins, 42 green peppers, 13 green string bean qt bags, 2 qt bags baby potatoes, 7 large potatoes, 127 tomatoes, 2 turnips, 2 watermelons, 30 yellow peppers, 20 yellow summer squash, 1 zuchini, 5 qt bags basil, 3 qt bags chives, 2 qt bags dill, 2 qt bags peppermint, 5 qt bags rosemary, 6 qt bags sage, 2 qt bags spearmint, 3 qt bags thyme, 10 bunches of black eye susans, 2 bunches daisies, 3 bunches white salvia, 3 bunches purple salvia, and 10 sunflowers. The comrienterprise.com website was publicly published in April and there were 9 days that the daily produce pickings were published and put out for sale before donating the produce the next day to a food bank. Ledyard’s food bank hours are 9AM-1PM Tue, Thu, Sat. and Preston City Congregational Church is the second Tuesday of each month. Thus I picked, published to the website and displayed the produce the Monday, Weds, Friday mornings (13 different days this year).
Most of the time on the W4 community Garden was spent on weeding, followed by planting (which included many perennial flowers and herbs). Only about half the garden was what I would call successful (see produce list above), with too large a variety and choosing the wrong place to place plants the chief culprit. Still need to add a well for watering to the mix also. The whole garden area was planted this year for the first time and we had plenty of rain as well. Next year we will concentrate on a smaller variety of plants and learning (and documenting) how to best take care of them.