Winter Solstice 2011
Tonight is the longest night of the year - marking the beginning of winter. Days will get longer. Sun will shine down. And, even though it will be cold, we can officially start to dream of planting the seeds of spring.
What are you looking forward to?
Howdie Hibernating Farmers,
In other news Rodney Al wrote a brilliant grant proposal to APIRG and APIRG has awarded us with 2500.00 dollars towards a 15,000 square foot greenhouse for our garden. This is a big ticket item, think 30 feet by 50 feet. We would extend our thousand pound yields to tomatoes and cucumbers with this type of coverage. We can also be cropping in April instead of late May.
As president I've been a little distant of late. That's not to say I haven't had my ear to the ground. I am very proud how effectively we utilized what we grew this year. That is not to say that we didn't have our stumbles, we always do.
Over the next months I want to continue a discussion with you folks of the membership on how we can be smarter about how we do things. In the next few weeks we will build our annual winter working groups to work on the minutiae of the EOGG day to day.
Start thinking now what types of focused groups you would like to lead. We have Marshall leading the Seed selection committee in the next month or so (more to come on this). I know there is a contingent seriously starting to consider the children's programming / garden / adventure play area on site. We still need a lead for that group. If any of these groups interest you or if you have a group idea that you would like to spearhead, please write to us directly @ edmontonorganic@gmail.com.
This upcoming year we need to streamline the distribution process of our produce. On a day to day harvest schedule we do fine, but when we have thousands of pounds of produce (think Corn or Potatoes this year) I think we need to have a common understanding how large yields should be distributed and to whom. The better understanding we all have up front the few misunderstandings we will have when the forks hit the hills.
I presented the Presidents Report at the AGM back in September. If you missed it, please have a read.
Travis
I came, I saw, I torched the weeds, I forked the hard soil, I rototilled,
I loaded,hauled and spread the composted manure, I rototilled,
I raked,leveled and firmed the soil.
No one came to plant, so I watered in the soil.
The new perennial area is ready for the crops - we have Asparagus, Lovage and
Jerusalem Artichoke to plant in the new area.
Can anyone find us other crops - Horseradish, Rhubarb, Chives, etc....?
Is anyone interested in coming out to the garden tonight ( wednesday ) ?
If interested respond to this post and I may be able to meet there at 7:00 pm.
News from the last week and a half.
semi-ripe tomatoes - stored in the barn.
Tuesday October 18 - Dug potatoes, disassembled irrigation system - cleaned, sorted and
stored the fittings and valve assemblies.
Wednesday October 19 - Evening group - stored the drip tape in the upper level of the barn,
sorted potatoes stored in the barn - sorted out and stored Pink
and Yellow seed potatoes.
Watered garlic field.
Thursday October 20 - Watered garlic field, raspberries and cherries.
Saturday October 22 - Group - pulled out dead garden plants - stacked up to dry out
dug up majority of carrots, dug up the rest of the potatoes
extra stored in the barn.
Watered garlic field, raspberries, strawberries and the fruit trees and
shrubs.
Come out tonight and harvest the rest of the garden - carrots, leeks, rutabaga, kale,
swiss chard, parsley, sage, dill and thyme still left in the garden.
In the barn we have about 100 lbs of tomatoes and about 1000 lbs of potatoes.
Hi Gang,
I am wondering if we can recall our donations to the food banks and kitchens for this season. I know we donated a lot of produce, I would just like to remember (collectively) quantities and types of food delivered to where.
Can those kind souls who took a lot of time and effort to get our surplus to people who needed it this season respond to this post? If you are receiving this as an email, remember you can just hit reply and answer the post that way!
Thanks,
Travis
The morning crew getting the field ready - firming, raking and leveling the soil.
A bulb splitting huddle!
The planting template assembled and stamping the planting pattern
onto the soil.
And they are off - fast and furious garlic planting
.
The afternoon crew finished off the planting.
The completed garlic planting.
And the math -
We ended up with 3 drifts of 5 rows each.
Each row is approx 115 feet long at an 8 inch spacing.
172 per row x 15 rows - 2580 plants.
Approx 750 to 800 hardneck and the rest are softneck.
Is that enough garlic for the EOGG garden?
Very good work - thank you everyone!!
Gooood Morning Gardeners!!!
Lots to do at the EOGG garden today.
There are still some veggies to harvest.
Come out and join the fun when ever you can today, I will be there all day.
Christine I have to say a big thank you and God love you. I love you, I owe you a big hug.
I found a bag of her garlic hanging on the barn boor handle yesterday morning.
Christine's response to the Garlic Report Part 2 post and this follow up jesture almost
restores my faith in our gardeners.
No Christine, you did not take any of the seed stock garlic. I remember when you came to get
garlic and you took the garlic from the blue plastic bin like most others did.
As you can see in the picture above the seed garlic on the left is huge compared
to the garlic that Christine took home. The large premium bulbs were stored for
stock, so that in the future all the garlic will grow up to that size.
The seed garlic was stored away in a large cardboard box and stashed toward the front
of the barn. The rodent or rodents had to climb over some of the stored farm equipment
and across a desk to get to the box of seed garlic.
The garlic rodents are still hidding in the shadows, as rodents do, so as not to be
exposed to the light of day!!
This is a shout out to all the Paparazzi, we are offering a big time reward
( your weight in potatoes ) for the first pictures of the President's new Baby!
The new baby arrived sunday evening, at last report mother and daughter doing
find, father a little harried. The proud parents have been hiding out since the birth.
Some one get those photos!!
More potatoes!!
A big thank you to Ann who came out thursday afternoon to dig more potatoes.
She dug up 24 hills and brought in 172 lbs of potatoes. ( 7 lbs per hill )
Lost and Found
These items have been found around the garden and I have them in the barn.
Please retrieve them if they belong to you.
Coffee mug
Brown sunglasses
Sony USB Walkman
It is fall and the tree planters are busy creating a new forest!
The University is planting large spruce trees ( 25 to 30 feet tall ) along our side of the
new asphalt multi-use pathway. The tree are being moved here from the South Research
Station at Ellerslie Road and 127 street.
The trees are being moved with a large truck mounted tree spade that takes an
8 foot diameter root ball about 7 feet deep.
Over the last two weeks I have talked to some of the garden members about the
happenings along the pathway. There have been a few different plans told to me
by various staff.
I think I finally have the real story, I talked with a more important seeming guy - one
fo those " We don't need no stinking badges!" type of guys.He did not know about
any of the plans because He was making it up as he went along.
The pathway will possibly be widened next spring two more meters to the sports center
side ( from 3 to 5 meters to become a multi-use / LRT access trail ).
Three trees have been planted behind the shed and the fruit field. He told me that
no more planting would be done this fall in the garden area. Next year we may lose
a wedge from the new compost area to about 30 feet in on the east chainlink fence.
I am altering the garlic planting area to suit this possibility.
Come and check out the new forest.
We harvested the garlic, dried and cured the garlic, sorted and stored the garlic we needed
to plant for next years crop.
The garlic was tucked away awaiting the planting time.
We even had a barn cat guarding the garlic from the mice, but the cat could not keep the
garlic from the large two legged mice.
I had stored away 350 bulbs of garlic to be used for seed. I counted on Monday
and only found 251 bulbs left in the box.
Someone must have needed the choice garlic bulbs more than we needed the planting stock.
350 bulbs @ 6 cloves - 2100 cloves / plants
250 bulbs @ 6 cloves - 1500 cloves / plants
To say the least I was and am saddened at the situation, I have put in a lot of time and energy
into this garden and this is
We had planned to plant the garlic on Wednesday but there just is not enough time
in an evening to get it done - it gets dark early and we had rain.
composted manure loaded, hauled, spread and tilled in.
garlic planting area. Trench is 150 feet long, 2.5 feet wide, 1 foot deep - 14 yards
of soil dug out and added to garlic planting area.
42 kgs - Gourmet Banana
43.5 kgs - Bintje
20 kgs - Pink and Yellow
151 kgs - Russet
5 kgs - Red ( not Red Norland just Red according to Marshal )
October 5 - 509 hills of potatoes in the field
October 12 - 191 hills of potatoes in the field
Good potato harvest for a week, lots of potatoes found a new home ( hopefully an honorable
home ). Still lots of potatoes to be harvested, sorted and stored.
Potatoes still in the field:
5 hills of Gourmet Banana
6 hills of Yukon Gold
15 hills of Pink and Yellow
18 hills of Red Norland
27 hills of Bintje
120 hills of Burbank Russet
We will need to collect, sort and store some of these remaining potatoes for seed
or next years crop.
Please dig the hills carefully and completely, this is the treasure recovered from 200 feet
of redug Red Norland potato hills. 40 kgs / 88 lbs
We have lots of potatoes yet to harvest - 509 hills still to dig up ( actual count ) I have even tilled under 20 feet of the north end of the field to reduce the number of hills left to dig up. 
Some of the potato hills are giving up lots of potatoes. Yukon Gold - 3 hills - 40 lbs huge potatoes 3 to 4 lbs each Pink and Yellow - 4 hills - 35 lbs Banana - 4 hills - 30 lbs So even on the low side at 7 lbs per hill @ 500 hills possibly 3500 lbs + left to harvest!!! Come out and get some more potatoes.
