End Of May - Newsletter 2012

Spring Clean up - Complete!

The Perth Dupont Community Garden is coming along fine. We have some new gardeners joining us this year. I think that most people took on their Spring Cleaning tasks seriously and the common areas of the garden are looking good. The Raspberry Patch was cleared up, and, both the garden shed & the cement bunker were reorganized. The wood chips were moved, and the giant mound of dirt by plot #13 was moved, and the path in front of the old composter (where we now keep the leaves and extra wood chips) was created ... a lot of hard work for all these tasks.

Mound Of Bricks & Dirt

Mound Of Bricks & Dirt - Before & After

Straw

The straw that arrived in the garden last week has an interesting story... One gardener contacted me to say that she saw free straw in Cragslist .. Okay, fine, I contact our gardener that has a truck, and she agreed to go pick it up. Wow ... not only was the access to the place a narrow lane way off of College St., it was up a fire escape, then up a ladder, and onto the roof of the building! .. She said that it made for a great story to tell, and was happy that there were people ready to help when she arrived at the garden. If you would like to make a donation to the garden for it , that would be appreciated.

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Project - Flagstone pathway

On June 15th, we will be having about 15 volunteers from a firm called: McKinsey & Company Toronto. They will be helping with the muscle needed to move the flagstones into place. However - before that we need to prep the area where will will be putting them. So, I am hoping that people will volunteer to assist the Captain of the Building Team to do that.

About "Brute Force"

Gardening takes a certain amount of stamina & patience. Strength can come in handy too. However ... Brute Force usually just breaks things ... Many of the light duty garden hand-spades or trowels, have been bent and broken, and this year I have seen the nice strong stainless steel one bent right out of shape! Please - if you feel a tool bending under your hand ... do not keep forcing it. Use a bigger shovel, or water your garden thoroughly and come back after the ground has softened.

As well, the new Red tap that was installed for the water that is closest to the garden shed, was stripped, and just spinning. We had to replace it.

About the Tap near the garden shed: it has two splitters attached to it to accommodate extra hoses. the little black leavers on the splitters shuts the water on or off. - Still confused ... ask directions from a fellow gardener or myself.

Hoses - most of the hoses are 100' long, and need care when winding them up. The best is to start at the tap, and pull the hose toward you and make big loops onto the hose reel. Do not start at the other end, unlike electronic cables, these are attached on one end, and get very twisted and tangled. ...

"String, twine and seedling boxes" - please make sure that you clean up your garden things when you are finished planting, and make sure that things like string ans twine are not left on the ground - they are the worst things for the weed-whacker, and push-mower.

It's disappointing that no one came forward to say, sorry I broke/bent this tool. Please remember, these tools belong to the community garden - to all of us, and we do not have a big organization that will keep supplying us with tools. Many of our tools were donated to us by fellow gardeners, and some were purchased with community garden money, so please replace anything that you have broken and feel free to donate tools to replenish our stock.

Garden Coordinator - Susan B.