VEGIES
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| Tomato - Oregon Spring from Territorial Seeds |
Community Gardens
After having the privilege of gardening in both the Nunawading Community Gardens and the University of British Columbia's Family Housing Community Garden I have become a fan of the concept. Community gardens rent plots, or allotments, to interested people who can't raise vegetables and flowers around their own homes perhaps because their yards are too shady (which was common in Nunawading) or they live in apartments (which was the case in UBC). Both these gardens had a small start up grant from Nunawading Council and UBC Family Housing, respectivley, and then became self sufficient, financing themselves from the yearly rentals on the plots. The gardens were lovely places to share the gentle art of horticulture, enjoy the sunshine or day dream over the weeding. At UBC the hummingbirds would dart amongst the beds. Both gardens insisted on organic gardening practices. The UBC gardens had an incredible ethnic mix of plot holders with many gardeners from china and some from Japan, Africa and Europe and of course your truly from Australia. It was at UBC that I learnt to eat the flower shoots of garlic from the Chinese gardeners.While city planners are giving us medium to high level housing, I think the community garden could play an important role in the modern lifestyle. The council run community garden makes a logical forum for educating people on waste management through worm composting. Community gardens are environmentally friendly, if run organically, since food is produced locally and doesn't need to be trucked over long distances. And most importantly they reduce the frustrations of thwarted gardeners.
Check out the Global Community Garden Network
Tomatoes
My main reason for gardening is tomatoes. I don't know why because I don't really like to eat them and I hate the smell of their foliage but there's something about a really vigorous tomato vine and the variety of fruit colours, shapes and sizes, not to mention the challenge of picking a really early tomato.In Australia's warm climate tomato growing is easy. The only trick is timing. Don't pay any attention to planting guides, ask your local nursery and experienced gardeners when the time to plant tomatoes is. If you plant them too early in temperate to cold areas you may as well not bother. In Melbourne you can plant 'mateys from Cup day to Boxing day.
In Vancouver, tomato growing is a really great challenge. The day to plant tomatoes is the long weekend, Queen Victoria Day, around the 21st of May. The weather is still a bit cold to plant out then, and they will sulk for awhile, but there's not much choice. You have to get the plants growing to produce a crop before autumn and more importantly, they have to ripen before the dreaded late blight hits with the first autumn rains. A plastic cloche in the early weeks will help to some degree.
I started seeds in 7.5 cm pots in March. I chose early ripening varieties such as Oregon Spring and Early Cherry. The pots were kept on a south facing window sill with a heater bar below. A serendipitous arrangement in our apartment. When the seedlings had out grown their pots I transferred them into 10 cm pots. When I planted them out, the seedlings were 20-30 cm tall with fruit already forming. I placed a plastic mulch under the seedlings. I did manage to beat the cold weather and the late blight (barely) and harvested a nice crop from my plot. I even appeared on the CBC program Canadian Gardener with my oregon springs, the host was that impressed!
Late blight seems to be rife in the Vancouver area and was particularly bad in the UBC community gardens due, in part, to the fact that most students are away when it hits and aren't there to take sanitary measures to avert an infection the next year. Its very important to burn all effected plant material but probably the only way to completely avoid late blight is to grow tomatoes in a green house or a large plastic cloche.
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| John Webster's Square Foot Garden |
Square Foot Gardening
Square Foot Gardening was developed by Mel Bartholomew and described in his book of the same name. After helping in the organisation of a community garden he realised that most people plant far too much of every vegetable they wish to grow and end up with a garden which they don't have the time to manage or if they do keep up with the maintenance, produces far more food than they can possibly eat. Then, by mid-summer, when most crops are plentiful, the would be gardener has lost interest. Rather than basing a home vegie garden on great long lines, the square foot method is based on units of one square foot each containing n x n of particular crop e.g. celery is planted 6 inches (15 cm) apart to give four per square while broccoli takes up a whole square per plant. The square foot units are grouped in enembles of 4x4 to give an easily manageable bed . In the square foot garden, seeds are planted where they are expected to grow and very little thinning is required. Because the garden size is kept to minimum, all other maintenance jobs are reduced too. Another important aspect of the square foot method is that vining plants are grown up trellises, so a winter squash plant, which would take up nine square feet if left to sprawl across the ground, can be grown in a one foot wide bed up a two foot wide trellis, so it takes up only 2 square feet of garden! The square foot method has been particularly useful in my tiny 2.5 x 1 metre garden.For more information check out the Square Foot Gardening Web Site and John Websters Square Foot Page