Summer in the Garden

Bright sunny days got the garden off to a good start. There are a lot of little events that happened, to make the community garden better. One of these occasions was when Shirley, one of our new gardeners, went to visit her Mom in Mississauga. The local Garden centre owner was generous enough to give us 2 car loads of plants. The big hearted donor, Louie Micheli, is the man who has run the seasonal garden centre at Dufferin Mall (or some years, at the Galleria Mall) for over twenty years—a local! Mr. Micheli had wanted to donate his surplus seedlings to a community garden and thankfully, by lucky coincidence, we connected. These plants went into our garden, and to eight other community gardens across the city. You can see the list of gardens by looking at the copy of the letter of thanks that we sent to the owner of the Garden Centre.

July: sunny and hot

By July we had the Garden under way. It was exciting to see such variety. The multicultural gardeners and their vegetable from back home. I was also impressed at how this variety opened up wonderful conversations, not only between the Gardeners, but with all the visitors that came through the garden.

From China we have the Bitter melon. The picture of Phung with the dark orange melon...this is what the Bitter Melon looks like when it is over-ripe. But to us, it is not spoiled, just an opportunity to save seeds. Phung Came to Canada in the late '70's. She often talks about her grand father's garden, and little techniques here and there that he showed her as a child. An other plant that she grew is this green plant that is cooked like spinach . Her grand father had told her that cuttings from this plant-even if it is bought at the grocery store, will grow roots quite easily...and sure enough they did.

An other melon that she grew was called Sweet Melon, it needs to be cooked, but it has medicinal properties. If we look at this first picture of the sweet melon that was taken near the end of July, it is about 8” long and 4" in diameter . This next picture taken at the end of August, it is about 20” long and 8" in diameter. And by the time it was harvested in September, it was about 27” long and 12" in diameter. And it must have weighed 15-18 pounds. We can see how it dwarfs the bitter Melon in this picture from Laura Berman. .

See the pictures of the Bitter Melon and Sweet Melon in Plants we grow