Gardens On Vine

Summer is Heating Up! Wednesday, July 20th

2011-07-20T13:32:00.000-07:00

Well, it's definitely that time of year - the dog days of summer have arrived! It's heating up at the gardens and veggies are growing like crazy! The pumpkin and squash are taking off as are the corn and beans! These are all good things! We'll have a great harvest come Fall!

The weeds are still out of control and it's often disheartening to go over to the gardens and see all the weeds taking over everything. The more we pull and knock them down, the bigger they seem to grow. It's a never-ending battle that we all face. Luckily, Matt and Brad have been knocking them down with the lawn mower, so that helps a lot! Thanks, guys!

With all these veggies coming up, what in the world do we do with them? Well, there's loads of options, and we have a few suggestions here for you! We've been making some yummy vegetarian meals with quinoa and beans right on the grill so you don't have to heat up the kitchen! These Mediterranean Stuffed Bell Peppers are light and easy and fun to make!

2 cups quinoa
1 cup garbanzo beans
zucchini
pappadew peppers
Red Bell Peppers - halved and cleaned
1 TBSP lemon juice
basil
feta cheese

cook the quinoa until done and then add the zucchini and pappadews and cook down slightly - remove from heat. Add salt, lemon juice and basil to taste. Stuff the bell peppers with quinoa filling and top with feta cheese. Put the peppers on the grill just before you're ready to eat and cook to your liking - then, enjoy! This is a great meal to sit outside and enjoy a glass of wine and the cool night air before the sun sets!

If you have an abundance of any veggies, you can also take them down to the local food bank, where those less-fortunate from the community can enjoy the bounties of your harvest as well!

Finally, we are starting to talk about plans for next year's gardens! We have included a link to "Starting a Community Garden" on the right for ideas, and we are welcoming new members for the coming year as well! Tell your friends and come on out and join us for another great season of gardening!

Happy Gardening!

Let it Rain! Let it Pour! Wed, July 13th

2011-07-13T13:49:00.000-07:00

Well, another rain storm passed by last night, and graced us with moisture from the sky! All the rain here in Northern Colorado is very unusual for sure, but it is also a blessing! Our veggies are looking really good so far! The pumpkin patch that we had difficulty with at the beginning of the season is now coming back. The seeds are even sprouting; though, these plants may not give us any vegetables, it was good to see that they were sprouting and we had just planted them a little early previously.

One thing that the rain has also brought is a growth spurt in the weeds! The weeds have literally taken over some of the gardens, and we have been trying to keep them under control by hoeing and laying down mulch, but some of these weeds are very stubborn. Another great thing about the rain is that the weeds are more easily pulled out of the ground, and organic gardening also means weeding!

The picture I included with our blog is from Bath Nursery. It shows what Lady Bug Eggs look like, and I have seen an increase in the number of Lady Bugs around the garden, which is wonderful! Lady Bugs eat some of the bad bugs that feed on our vegetables, so if you see these eggs on some leaves, let them be so that we can have a garden full of these beautiful creatures!

Otherwise, we're in the middle of our growing season and some plants are flourishing, putting on fruit and getting ready for harvest in another few weeks! Flowers are coming out and getting ready to bloom. It's about the end of the season for our leafy greens, and we'll be replanting leafy greens for a fall harvest in a few weeks.

Otherwise, all is well at the Gardens on West Vine, and we hope that you, too, are having a fantastic gardening season!

Bug Off! - July 6, 2011

2011-07-05T13:54:00.000-07:00

Hoping everyone had a perfect July 4th! We spent less time in the gardens this weekend, but we are back at it this week! This time, we are working on those pesky little critters that keep eating at our plants! Bugs!

One of our Community Garden Members, Shannon Harker, sent over a good and informative article on controlling bugs with household formulas in an environmentally safe way. After looking over it, we will put this up on the blog as a reference site for all of our gardeners in the years to come! Take a look and let us know what you think! www.finegardening.com

I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but there was also a good article in Amish Land Seeds, too, about starting seeds. So, I hope that you'll check that one out as well!

This week will bring us lots of weeding. Organic gardening is anything if it isn't a constant challenge to weed the invasive plants out. It's supposed to be a rainy week, so it will be nice to have things a little cooler, but it won't control the weeds any!

See you out in the gardens!

Replanting - July 1, 2011

2011-07-01T09:06:00.001-07:00

Well, with all the rain we've had in June, our Winter Squash plot didn't do anything. The seeds rotted in the ground, so it's time for replanting! We got two pumpkin plants, an acorn squash, and a spaghetti squash plant, and put them in the ground two days ago. We had a bout of good thunderstorms yesterday to get them set up, and we planted them with some Happy Frog Organic Fertilizer. The wind whipped them around quite a bit, but they seem to be doing well.

Most of the seeds planted didn't get established like we hoped. They rotted from overwatering with the rain at the beginning of the month. It's a little late to plant some things, but we are getting ready to plant a few new seeds for the fall at the end of the month including spinach, lettuce, and some other fall, late season plants.

Our perennials are doing great! The Hops are going wild, the strawberries are starting to perk up, and the sage is loving its new home. We're still waiting on the rhubarb and asparagus to show themselves, and the thyme will hopefully perk up as well...

Finally, we are going to be conducting some soil tests over the next few weeks as well. We want to have a fantastic 2012 season, so we want to get a jump start this fall my amending the soil as needed and getting the beds ready for the spring. We'll do some tilling in the fall, turn everything over, amend the soil, and cover with mulch. If anyone wants to plant garlic, we will have the opportunity to do that in October. We will be ready for the spring to get onions in the ground by St. Patrick's Day, and to get any bulbs in the ground early on in the spring as well. We will do another till in the spring and make any other amendments that are needed before getting our seedlings in the ground by Mother's Day!

That's all the updates for this week! We are happy for the rain this week, and hope you have happy gardens this year, too!

June 2011 - Planted and Ready to Go!

2011-06-20T10:51:00.000-07:00

The Community Gardens on West Vine at The Meeting House are well underway for the 2011 season! We all have our plots planted, and we even have four "experimental" beds as well! We have planted a bed of winter squash, a bed of sweet corn, a bed of dried beans, and a bed of perennials that includes rhubarb, strawberries, asparagus, hops, sage, and thyme. Our own personal beds are all filled with yummy veggies that have started to sprout because of all the wonderful moisture we have had this season!

If you are interested in reserving a plot at the community gardens, contact Kristina Brown at krisbrown2011@gmail.com. We will get you started with a plot and you can plant your late-season veggies for the fall!

Spring is Here!

2010-04-14T11:49:00.001-07:00

Spring is here, and we are busily getting ready for planting! We ordered seeds and split them up for planting. Most of us have started our plants indoors and will transplant them outdoors in the next few weeks. The weather in Colorado has been windy, but nice enough to get the gardens started.

Shannon and Matt have purchased the chickens for the garden, and they are living in their basement for now until we get the pen built and set up. We will be working on this in the coming weeks. If you want to help participate in the building of the pen, let us know so that we can ensure that you are on the list!

We'll have some dirt delivered in the coming weeks, and we will all be out getting our plots ready and planting for the coming growing season!

Chicken Plan Passed!

2010-03-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Chicken Plan was approved by the Friends Meeting on March 14, 2010. We are looking forward to getting started with our chicken plan, which will include building a chicken run and coop, getting the chickens, and beginning the care rotation. Shannon and Matt have graciously offered to help with the young chicks and to care for them in their home until they are big enough to put outside.

A few additions to the chicken plan include providing hay for the chickens to keep the smell down. We will also be getting the youth from the Friends Meeting to help participate as much as they want. What a great way for families to be a part of the community!

The Garden is almost completely full! We have two more families from the community that will be participating! We have also set aside a plot to plant some perennials like asparagus and strawberries from which we will all share! We have ordered some plants and some seeds, so we are getting ready for the warmer spring days so that we can get our gardening started!

The Chicken Plan Proposal

2010-02-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

Chicken Plan for Community Gardens on Vine

Overview:
The Community Garden on Vine is proposing to the Grounds Committee of the Quaker Meeting a small area for raising chickens within the confines of the garden. The area would not house more than 12 chickens for the 2010 year. The chicken area is experimental to determine if the project is plausible and sustainable for this community garden.

Chicken Project Participants:
Shannon
Matt
Kristina Brown
Brad Brown
Luanna Heikes
Karen
Jacquie Adams

Space:
The proposed chicken area is at the back of the garden at the northeast side. Please see the sketch in attachment 1a. (TBD)

Cost:
The cost for the chicken coop, chicken feed, and young chickens will be absorbed by the community garden members participating in the chicken project. The expected costs are as follows:

Chicken coop building materials: approxmately $200 using materials from The ReSource
Chickens: $2.75 each from No. Colorado Feed Supply
Chicken feed for the season: Approximately $.50 per pound

Time:
The time for taking care of the chickens will be divided evenly amongst the community garden participants. The majority of the chicken project participants live within a half-mile radius of the gardens, so the chickens will be cared for on a daily basis. In the event of any persons going on vacation, the responsibility for the chickens will be handed over to someone voluntarily for the time that the person is away to be resumed upon their return.

Use:
The chickens will be cared for daily, and the eggs will be dispersed among the chicken project community garden participants equally. A few chickens will be processed at the end of the season and dispersed among the chicken project participants.

The chicken's feces will be used as natural and organic fertilizer for the soil, and compostable vegetables can be fed to the chickens from the garden as well.

The chickens will be cared for through the winter. They will be closed in with a heater on cold days and allowed out on nice weather days.

City & County Regulations:
Fort Collins City regulations require that residences only house 6 hens at a time; however, the property of the Community Gardens on Vine are outside of city limits, and are, therefore, subject to county regulations, which are much less stringent.

Larimer county does not have a restriction on the number of hens or roosters a residence can have as long as the animals are well cared for. The chicken plan being proposed is only requesting for hens to be raised, no roosters.

Resources:

A great resource that helped me find some of this information was:
http://urbanchickens.org/blog/urban-chicken-keeping-legalized-ft-collins

Also, the Northern Colorado Feeders' Supply on Linden St. were very helpful, and we personally bought five chickens from them for our home. They have a chicken workshop in March to provide information to those who don't know how to raise chickens.

The Rocky Mountain Sustainable Living Association has year-round workshops on sustainable living, which includes gardening and raising chickens.

Brainstorming

2009-11-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Well, our first season at the Community Gardens on Vine has come to a close. We met on Sunday, November 22nd, to wrap up last year's comments and begin on building a wonderful garden for next year! We are all very excited about the possibilities that will be coming in 2010!

So far, we have seven plots signed up and two still available. We are looking at possibly adding two more plots for 2010, which will bring us to 11 plots total! We will be ordering the seed catalogs soon so that we can share seeds and begin planting early this year.

All of the members of the Community Gardens on Vine will be able to publish their own posts to the blog. This will be a place for us to share our successes, our failures, and to communicate with each other. We will be able to tell the public about this beautiful place that we have created where food will grow, flowers will bloom, and people will come together in celebration of the earth!

We will be posting contact information if you are interested in joining the Community Gardens on Vine, so check back often!