Printer friendly version | help

Gardening Workboard

Gardening work bulletin board 2011

Gardening Saturday Nov 19, from 11:30 to 1:30

Hello gardeners, We will be meeting for one final session tomorrow to clean out the garden shed, make notes for next season, do the compost (which will continue to be done through the winter) and prune the gardens around the park. For a little excitement, we'll also dig up some jerusalem artichokes.

Final gardening session for 2011 from 11:30 to 1:30 on Saturday, November 19.

Thank you to all of the volunteers who have made this season's gardens and gardening workshops so successful! If we don't see you tomorrow, have a great winter, and we'll see you when the sun's rays start getting stronger, in late February or March, to start seeds and hatch plans for next year!

Gardening Saturday Oct 22, 2-4pm and Wednesday Oct 26, 2-4pm.

Hi folks, Well the forecast for tomorrow looks free of rain, so planting out the last of the garlic should be a pleasant task. We've started cleaning up the garden beds before winter, and this week we'll be continuing by pulling some plants and picking the last of the fruit, spreading compost on the beds, etc. There will still be some things that we can continue to harvest even after the temperature dips below freezing -- some of the hardier herbs like sage, as well as kale and beets. We also have clean up and possibly seeding to do in the flower beds around the park.

This week's gardening sessions are: Saturday Oct 22, 2-4pm and Wednesday Oct 26, 2-4pm.

We had such a great response for our preserving workshop tomorrow from 4-6pm that it's full and we've added a second session -- Sunday Oct 30, 1-4pm. If you were planning to attend tomorrow and hadn't RSVP'd yet, please let us know if you'd like to join us on Oct 30 instead. Also, we'll be having our end-of-season garden party to celebrate the gardens this year and thank our garden volunteers for all of their help. The party will be Saturday Oct 29 from 2-4pm. The annual Night of Dread parade will begin that evening in the park, so be sure to stick around afterwards!

And last but not least, we still have some strawberry plants that we haven't found space for, so if anyone is interested in taking some home, let us know. See you in the garden,

Gardening Sat Oct 15, 2-4pm and Wed Oct 19, 2-4pm

Hi gardeners,

Well, tomorrow's forecast isn't too promising, but cloudy skies could be just the thing for transplanting more strawberry plants, which is what's in store for us in the garden. We also have more garlic and flower bulbs to plant. This is the first round of imagining what we want the gardens to look like next year, so come help us look into the mists of the future! The next round will come in late winter, when we start sowing seeds in the rinkhouse while people are still lacing up their skates for hockey and pleasure skating.

Garden sessions this week: Saturday Oct 15, 2-4pm and Wednesday Oct 19, 2-4pm

We'll have hot drinks and snacks, as well as some garden harvest to share.

More information about upcoming garden events to follow soon... See you in the garden,

Gardening this week: Sat, Oct 8, 2-4 pm and Wed, Oct 12, 2-4 pm

A big thank you to those of you who made it out to our green roofing workshop on Saturday! It was a nice time, cold as it was that day, and we got a lot of work done on the green roof: weeding out Asian Dayflowers, replenishing the soil with a sand-compost mix, and planting some sedums (a greenroof standard!) saxifrage, and some shallow-rooted native grasses (June Grass and Blue Grama). During Wednesday's gardening session we finished it off with some chionodoxa bulbs and some mulch. Meanwhile there was a bulb planting bee down in the gully and of course, some harvesting in the veggie gardens.

Speaking of bees...another big thank you is in order to Scott MacIvor, who came by the park yesterday evening to give us a presentation about the bee research he has been doing that i mentioned in the last email. There was a good turn out - including lots of kids. It was so lovely to see how enthusiastic and curious they were. And Leslie's honeycake was a nice touch too : )

This Saturday Leslie will be leading the gardening session and is planning to finish up with the bulb planting, which may also include garlic planting as well. We still have lots of gardening activities to do over the next few weeks so stay tuned!

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, October 8, 2-4 pm, and Wednesday, October 12, 2-4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Special Event this week: Thursday, Oct. 6, 5 pm - Presentation and Q&A with Solitary Bee Researcher Scott MacIvor

Hi folks, just a heads up about an exciting event that is happening this week at the park:

Scott MacIvor, a PhD student at York University who is doing groundbreaking research on the effects of the urban environment on cavity-nesting solitary bees has been using Dufferin Grove Park as one of his research sites this past summer, by installing a bee condo in one of the more secluded, naturalized gardens within the park. He will be at the park this coming Thursday, October 6 to take down his bee condo and give a presentation about his research. The presentation will be at 5 pm by the bake oven.

For more details about this research study see: Solitary Bee Research

See you then...Rachel

PS There is also a Wednesday gardening session from 2-4 pm tomorrow as usual : )

Gardening this week: Sat Oct 1, 2-4pm (workshop!) and Wed Oct 5, 2-4pm

Let´s hope for some sun this Saturday! Everyone is welcome to join us for a green roof workshop this Saturday, from 2-4pm. Learn the basics about Green Roofing while we rejuvenate the Cob Courtyard Green Roof in the southeast end of the park (near the playground). Refreshments will be served.

Over the last couple of weeks, we've built our first couple cold frames, hopefully with more to follow. This means we have a way of protecting some of our plants from colder temperatures. The gardeners also built a raspberry fence, tidied the perennial beds, and harvested tomatoes, carrots, radishes, kale, beets, swiss chard, herbs, arugula, okra, and (for the first time this season) some lovely purple kohlrabi. Looking ahead, we´re hoping that the mexican sour gherkins have a chance to size up (which, in their case, means growing to about the hefty size of an olive) before it gets too cold. And the bulbs arrive tomorrow, so we welcome new and regular volunteers to join us in planting those!

Gardening times this week: Green roof workshop Saturday Oct 1, 2-4pm & regular gardening session Wednesday Oct 5, 2-4pm.

See you in the garden,

Gardening this week: SAT Sept 24, 2-4pm and Wed Sept 28, 2-4pm

Last week we made some good progress with tidying up the garden beds and keeping up with the harvest (those cherry tomatoes keep us busy!). The rain on Saturday afternoon gave us the opportunity to start on some little cold frames.

This week we'll be finishing the work on the cold frames, harvesting, and planting those fall jewels -- bulbs!

Drop-in gardening times this week: Saturday, Sept. 24 and Wednesday Sept. 28, 2-4pm.

See you in the garden,

Gardening this week: SAT Sept 17, 2-4pm and Wed Sept 21, 3-5pm

Hello gardeners,

Even though the days are cooling off faster than we might have hoped, we've continued to enjoy some gloriously sunny afternoons in the garden -- and hopefully this week will be no exception. This week we'll be working on the front flower beds as well as harvesting more tomatoes, okra, greens, beets, etc. from the veggie gardens.

Last week we started a new compost pile, which means that we now have two piles resting before we spread them on the garden beds before winter. In the coming weeks we'll also have garlic, greens, bulbs and poppies to plant for spring, as well as possibly some cold frames to build. Not to mention our upcoming workshops: Rooftop gardening (Oct. 1) and Preserving (date tba). Also in the works for the coming weeks is a Pollinator talk by Scott MacIvor -- more on that soon.

Gardening sessions this week: Sat Sept.17, 2-4pm and Wednesday Sept.21, 3-5pm.

Gardening this week: SUN Sept 11, 1-3pm and Wed Sept 14, 4-6pm

Well this week we've had to rearrange our schedule a bit -- there will be no gardening session on Saturday (there will be no city programming that day in the park because of a planned protest). So we hope some of you will be able to come out on Sunday afternoon instead.

Last week we had a bumper crop of volunteers, thanks everyone for coming out! It was exciting to see how much we can do with a few more hands: tomato trellising, weeding, harvesting, laying compost and mulching in perennial beds. In compost news, this week we collected a wheelbarrowful of coffee grinds from The Common, and then this past Saturday we rotated the compost bins. It looks like we'll have two full bins of finished compost to spread on the veggie gardens before winter. Also, stay tuned for the next round of workshops in the gardens, we'll be sending more details soon, but the topics are: Rooftop gardening and Canning

In the meantime, enjoy a lazy Saturday and come find us in the gardens on Sunday!

Gardening sessions this week: SUNDAY Sept 11, 1-3pm; Wednesday Sept 14, 4-6pm.

This week we'll be caring for some of the perennial beds by weeding, laying compost and mulching; pruning squash and tomato plants; and of course, more harvesting!

Gardening this wk: Sat Sept 3, 4-6pm; Sun Sept 4, 8-10am; Wed Sept 7, 4-6pm

This weekend's forecast for warm temperatures bodes well for some new growth in the vegetable gardens -- we've been eagerly watching last week's radish, kale, arugula, and cress seedlings poke up out of the soil, and crossing our fingers for a few more shoots to appear. Recently, a good chunk of our time has been spent trying to keep up with the plants that are ready for harvesting -- beans, okra, basil, tomatoes, squash, chard, beet greens, etc. It's nice to remember that we can also look forward to adding some new veggies to our harvest list in a month or more -- especially the hardier, colder weather crops like kale.

This week in the garden, we'll be focusing on the tomato plants (some pruning and trellising), troubled plants (by treating them with compost tea, compost, and mulch), and harvesting in general. Please note that this is the last week for the early morning Sunday gardening time -- next week we'll go down to one weekend session.

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday Sept 3, 4-6pm, Sunday Sept 4, 8-10am, Wednesday Sept 7, 4-6pm

As always, refreshments are provided, and volunteers can take home some of the harvest.

See you in the garden

---

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 27, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 28, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 31, 4 - 6 pm

Once again, thanks to all of the wonderful participants who came out for the harvesting workshop on Saturday. It was such a lovely time! I was impressed by the knowledge sharing that took place. Although there were very different levels of experience amongst us all, each of us contributed the knowledge we had and we all left having learned something new.

On Wednesday's garden session there were so many things planted you would think it was the start of the season again : ) Arugula, fennel, garden cress, baby pak choy, french and cherry belle radishes, carrots, beets and kale - just to name a few! We also used the lasagne layering technique (layers of newspaper weighed down with soil) to smother grass and weeds around the edges of the naturalized garden to prepare it for more seeding down the road.

Up ahead this week there will be the usual weeding, watering, and harvesting to do...

---

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 27, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 28, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 31, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

By the way, I will be away for the next couple of weeks so Anna B will be taking over the garden update writing while I'm gone. Thanks Anna!

---

Harvesting workshop - Sat, Aug 20, 4-6 pm, Gardening Sessions: Sun, Aug 21, 8-10 am, Wed, Aug 24, 4-6 pm

Thanks to everyone who made it out for the composting workshop last Saturday. We really appreciated the enthusiasm and interest! Don't forget we have another workshop tomorrow, from 4-6, on harvesting techniques for a variety of herbs and vegetables. We've already harvested lots of herbs, garlic, squash, kale, and beans.. tomatoes are just about ready. Perhaps we will also have to add elderberry picking to the list...

We harvested a bunch on Tuesday but there were still lots more just beginning to ripen. Actually, when we were harvesting there were tons we couldn't reach. Disappointing as it was, in retrospect perhaps it's a good thing to leave them for the birds - as long as they leave the lower ones for us : )

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 20, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 21, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 24, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Gardening sessions this week: Sat, Aug 13, 4-6, Sun, Aug 14, 8-10, and Wed, Aug 17, 4-6

Here are a couple of shots of how the naturalized garden is looking these days. At the moment it is dominated by these incredible savannah/tallgrass prairie flowers - Liatris spicata (they have a few common names: dense blazing star, gayfeather, etc). They were planted as bulbs with a bunch of children during the Bee-Day Party at the end of May. I hope that some of them get a chance to see the fruits of their labour. There certainly are a lot of pollinators - mostly bees - enjoying them!

Don't forget to RSVP for our composting workshop this Saturday! Details here

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 13, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 14, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 17, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Upcoming events:

Saturday, August 20, 4-6 pm: Harvesting Workshop

Free Workshops at the DufferinGroveCommunity Gardens

August 13, 4-6pm
August 20, 4-6pm

Click on poster for more information.

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 6, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 7, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 10, 4 - 6 pm

The summer is rolling right along, and here we are in August already. This is a photo of our bean trellis which is flowering right now. It's been a bit ravaged by birds and other critters but it's still doing well. This past week in the gardens we've done a lot of watering and weeding: in and around the vegetable gardens, the naturalized garden and on the greenroof, and in the flower beds in front of the rink house. We also harvested some delicious kale on the weekend! It was very tasty : )

Our tomatoes are getting quite heavy with fruit and are beginning to get a bit too dense so thinning them will be one of our tasks in the coming week along with general garden maintenance and some more seed sowing.

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, August 6, 4-6 pm, Sunday, August 7, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 10, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Upcoming Events: As mentioned in last week's email, we have some workshops coming up in conjunction with our Saturday afternoon gardening club sessions. Refreshments will be served. RSVP to gardens@dufferinpark.ca.

Saturday, August 13, 4-6 pm: Composting Workshop - the why's and how's of composting

Saturday, August 20, 4-6 pm: Harvesting Workshop - techniques for harvesting different kinds of herbs and vegetables

Hope you can make it!

Rachel Weston, Sat, July 30, 4-6, Sun, July 31, 8-10, Wed, Aug 3, 4-6

Hope everyone is well. If you have been reading my previous emails you may have guessed that the rain we have been getting this week has put a smile on my face : ) How about you? This week in the gardens we have done some more planting in the vegetable gardens with still more ahead. Actually we planted seeds for something I had never heard of before - Orach. Apparently it's a bit like spinach but has triangular leaves and comes in all kinds of funky colours. The variety we have is fuscia. Should be interesting!

On the agenda this week is arugula seeding, tomato pruning and staking in the veggie gardens. Elsewhere in the park we'll be thinning and weeding some of the flower beds, including the green roof.

Also... Mark your calendars and RSVP for some upcoming workshops we'll be having as part of our Saturday gardening sessions on August 13 and August 20, 4-6 pm.

Aug 13: All about Composting

Aug 20: Harvesting Techniques

More details to follow.

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, July 30, 4-6 pm, Sunday, July 31, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, August 3, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, Sat, July 23, 4-6 pm, Sun, July 24, 8-10 am, and Wed, July 27, 4-6 pm

Well perhaps night time wasn't the right time to take a photo of these globe thistles but somehow they still look pretty cool I think....and they're drought tolerant which is probably why they are still looking so good in contrast to some other plants I chose to leave out of the photo! Like everywhere else the plants in the park are getting fried. Watering is our number one gardening activity right now and probably will be for a while. Between all of the flower beds, the young trees, the vegetable gardens, and the GRASS! It's a huge job, but between us gardeners (volunteers and staff alike) and the other recreation staff at the park we are trying our best to keep everything hydrated. Come on RAIN!!!

Gardening sessions this week: Saturday, July 23, 4-6 pm, Sunday, July 24, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, July 27, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, Sat, July 16, 4-6 pm, Sun, July 17, 8-10 am, Wed, July 20, 4-6 pm

You may have noticed in the garden centres and magazines lately that black flowers are all the rage this season. Well, here at the park we are no slouches when it comes to staying on top of the trends : ) Check out our black hollyhocks behind the bake oven! Actually, we planted the seeds last season but since they are biennials the flowers didn't come out until now, and I had completely forgotten what colour they were.

This week we have 2 new session times happening that will be on for the rest of the summer in order to avoid some of the midday heat. Starting tomorrow, there will now be a Saturday session from 4-6, and on Sundays we are moving the gardening session from the afternoon to the morning, from 8-10 am. Hopefully that will attract some of the earlybirds! Actually, gardening at that time of the day in the summer is quite lovely...the sun is already up but hasn't yet started to swelter. It's a great time to water too : )

Gardening session this week: Saturday, July 16, 4-6 pm, Sunday, July 17, 8-10 am, and Wednesday, July 20, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

In other news you may or may not have heard about some of the staffing issues and changes that have been happening and are on the horizon at the park. It's far to complicated to discuss here, but Jutta Mason has begun writing a serial called "Summer Story" that explains a lot... copies can be found at the park or on the Friends of Dufferin Grove Park website at Dufferin Grove Is In Trouble 2/ Chapter 1

Rachel Weston, Sun, July 10, 2-4 pm, and Wed, July 13, 4 - 6 pm

Ahoy... is anyone else boggled by the amount of stuff going on in the city this weekend? Afrofest, Salsa on St Clair, the Indy, Fringe...and a dozen or so other things I'm forgetting at the moment. How does one decide? It's a hard life... In garden news last Sunday's naturalization project went wonderfully! Thanks so much to our volunteers and also to Clement Kent (who I've mentioned here before) for nurturing most of the seedlings at the York U greenhouse. The rest came from Urban Harvest (uharvest.ca) and also a couple of divisions were made from plants in the park. We couldn't have picked a hotter afternoon for it but thanks to a rigorous watering schedule this week the plants are looking quite healthy. Our little naturalized garden now has quite an eclectic mix of native savannah wildflowers and grasses - big and little bluestem, indian grass, cup plant, black eyed susan, aster, hyssop, columbine, and prairie smoke.

This week in the vegetable gardens we are planning to add a few more herbs and lettuce seeds to the few remaining unused plots and also start tying up the tomatoes. We will also venture down to the gardens by (and on) the cob house to do some weeding and thinning.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, July 10, 2 - 4 pm and Wednesday, July 13, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Try to stay cool this weekend...

Rachel Weston, Sun, July 3, 2-4 pm and Wed, July 6, 4-6 pm

I hope you are all well and looking forward to a wonderfully short week and a relaxing long weekend. However, I hope that along with all of that relaxing you can also fit in the aforementioned workshop that was originally scheduled for last Sunday, and will now be happening this coming Sunday, July 3, from 2 - 4 pm (see details below). This coming Wednesday the gardening club will be shifting to the summer schedule, and will now be running from 4 - 6 pm (rather than 3 - 5).

Gardening session this week: Sunday, July 3, 2 - 4 pm and Wednesday, July 6, 4 - 6 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Happy Canada Day!

Naturalization Project

Rachel Weston, Sun, June 19, 2-4 pm and Wed, June 22, 3-5 pm

Hello everyone,

Doesn't Toronto seem to be abuzz with activity all of a sudden? With music wafting in through my window from the Taste of Little Italy, and all of the Luminato and NXNE shows happening this week, among countless other events I am sure...I think festival season has truly arrived. And so have our tomato trellises! Last Sunday we really transformed one of our dormant veggie garden plots with the help of our illustrious volunteers. We weeded and tilled the soil, and then filled it with a variety of tomato plants and all manner of supports: trellises, teepees, spirals and cages. Then we interplanted some of the tomatoes with basil and marigolds which should help keep pests away (looks and smells pretty too). Wednesday's session had more planting, lots of watering, and also testing out some planting bags we are planning to install in underutilized parts of the vegetable gardens on Sunday. We have more seeds to sow and also some plants to plant that we received from FoodShare's Community Garden Plant Giveaway yesterday.

Please mark your calendars for the following Sunday (June 26), when we will be hosting our second workshop of the season on the benefits of naturalized gardens. The bulk of the workshop will be hands-on as we go for round 2 of the installation of the newest naturalized garden in the park. (The first planting was done with children during the Bee-Day Celebration a few weeks ago). We will be adding more native wildflower and grass seeds, seedlings, and also divisions we will be making from other pre-existing native plant stands within the park.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, June 19, 2 - 4 pm and Wed, June 22, 3 - 5 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Upcoming Events In and Around the Park:

Sunday, June 19: Environment Day at the Dufferin Mall (drop off unused stuff, dispose of hazardous waste, pick up free compost...see http://www.toronto.ca/environment_days/)

Tuesday, June 21: Public Meeting about the Future of the Park, 7-9 pm, bake oven supper at 6 pm. Concerns are being raised about how cuts to public funding will affect recreation programs that are offered at the park (and around the city). Community members and park users are invited to come down and give your opinion about the kinds of programs that are important to you. (See details on the website: http://dufferinpark.ca/newsletter/wiki/wiki.php/#meeting)

See you in the garden...Rachel

Rachel Weston, Sun, June 12, 2-4 pm and Wed June 15, 3-5 pm

I hope this email finds you all well! Thanks to those of you who made it out for our container gardening workshop on Sunday morning, it was a lovely time and we really appreciated the enthusiasm of the group! It's the first in a series of workshops we will be hosting over the course of the season so stay tuned for more details.

During our gardening sessions this past week we started expanding the herb wheel, planted and transplanted some perennials, and planted a variety of climbing bean seeds complete with bamboo and wire trellis. We also started hardening off our tomato seedlings in anticipation of this coming Sunday's Tomato Planting Blitz! We have lots of work to do to get them all in on Sunday...weeding and turning the soil, adding compost, planting, trellising and watering too. We will no doubt have some plants left over to send home with you as well. Come on down - it's going to be a tomato-rific time!

Gardening session this week: Sunday, June 12, 2 - 4 pm and Wed, June 15, 3 - 5 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, Sun, June 5, 2-4 pm and Wed June 8, 3-5 pm

The sunshine has finally arrived in Toronto! What a glorious week we have had. Before last Sunday's session some donations of summer annuals, a hosta, and some squash, zucchini and pumpkin seedlings arrived at the park so we spent most of the session planting those. Wednesday's session was focused on weeding some of the flower beds and clearing out more spaces in the vegetable garden to get ready for our next seed sowing session (this Sunday). We are expanding our herb wheel and also reintroducing a variety of beans, which were missing from the garden last year (apart from some delightful edamame!) Currently our garlic is proliferating nicely around the edges of the children's garden, the peas and spinach are growing slowly, and our tomato seedlings are getting bigger every day in the rinkhouse windowsills.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, June 5, 2 - 4 pm and Wed, June 8, 3 - 5 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, June 1, 2011 3-5 pm

We are pleased to announce the start of a second weekly gardening session that will be taking place on Wednesdays from 3-5 pm. Hopefully this time slot will work out better for some of you who aren't able to make it to the Sunday 2-4 sessions. And of course you are most welcome to attend both gardening sessions if you are keen : )

Gardening sessions this week: Wednesday, June 1, 3 - 5 pm AND Sunday, June 5, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, May 29 2011

I hope you all had a wonderful long weekend! And wasn't it nice to follow that with a short work week? Yesterday a post and rail fence was installed around our naturalized garden-to-be, which will have its first installation tomorrow during the Bee-Day Party, where Clement Kent will be leading a pollinator-friendly planting session for children. In the coming weeks we will be making more additions of native grass and wildflower seeds and seedlings as they become ready in the greenhouse. This Sunday's gardening session will be focused on seed sowing and planting in the vegetable gardens and some of the flower beds around the park.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, May 29, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, May 22, 2011

I hope you are all doing well and are as eager as I am for a long weekend : ) Last week's session was all about potting up the seedlings we have been growing in the rinkhouse. The tomato seedlings are looking especially robust while the peppers and herbs we seeded have, sadly, not been thriving for the most part. Ah well..one of the great things about gardening is the element of surprise : )

There will not be a gardening session this Sunday, but we will be back the following Sunday with plenty to do!

Some upcoming events to keep in mind:

Saturday, May 28, 2-6 pm: Bee-Day Party at the park. This is the Pollinator Celebration I mentioned in a previous email. For more info please check out the Friends of Dufferin Grove Park homepage at www.dufferinpark.ca.

Sunday, June 5, 11 am - 1pm: Container Gardening Workshop. Leslie and I will be giving a free workshop on container gardening. The focus will be on growing food and should be helpful for people with limited space to work with or for whom lack of accessibility is a deterrent from traditional gardening. RSVP to gardens@dufferinpark.ca

Rachel Weston, May 15, 2-4 pm, 2011

What a nice blast of warm weather we've been having. Last Sunday was a beautiful day to be in the garden and we took advantage of it to give the garden beds close to the rink house their long awaited spring clean up.

Unfortunately, after all that rain it was also weed heaven so it was a bit of a slow go. And there's still weeding a-plenty left to do..did I say that? I hope I haven't scared you away this Sunday : ) There's more to do besides weeding I promise! We have our little seedlings to pot up to their own individual pots now that they've gotten big enough, and we have more veggie garden beds to prepare and more seeds to sow.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, May 15, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, May 8, 2-4 pm, 2011

You'll be happy to know that we finally managed to get some radish, pea and spinach seeds into the ground last Sunday. It felt like quite a victory! It will be so thrilling to watch them grow and then reap our first harvest of the season. We also smothered the grass in the naturalized garden bed as a first step to prepare it for planting. This week we will be cleaning up garden beds and looking after our seedlings that are still growing (slowly) inside the rinkhouse.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, May 8, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Looking forward to gardening with you...Rachel

Rachel Weston, May 1, 2-4 pm, 2011

Looking at the weather forecast the Sunday session appears to once again be a rainy one but hope springs eternal and I'm hoping for blue skies and sunshine, how about you? Weather reports have been wrong before. If we get lucky then there will be lots to do outdoors: finally getting those peas and spinaches into the ground, cleaning up some of our perennial beds, and smothering some grass where our naturalized garden is going to be to prepare it for planting. Although our little seedlings are a bit stunted by the lack of sunshine, we will also have some potting up to do indoors (perhaps that will be the main activity for the day if the rain thwarts our efforts outside again).

Gardening session this week: Sunday, May 1, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Eagerly awaiting getting out into the garden beds...until then,

Rachel Weston, April 24, 2011

Hi everybody,

What a week huh? It seems we've had a taste of just about everything. Rain...snow...thunder...lightening...hail!?! Finally a bit of sunshine today. Needless to say our good intentions to get out into the garden on Sunday were thwarted, although we did seed a bunch more tomatoes and some basil, parsley and squash too. This week our gardening session is cancelled for the holiday weekend but we'll be back again the following Sunday and there will be lots of things to do! In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to whet your appetite with some of the different projects and activities we have in mind for the season.

Apart from the always exciting production of edibles in the vegetable garden we are also planning some interesting things in the gardens around the park. A naturalized garden bed installation, for one. As we speak, Clement Kent - the head of the Pollinator Garden Project (http://www.blog.pollinatorgardens.net/) is starting native wildflower seedlings for us at the York U Greenhouse. We will be renovating a neglected garden bed on the north side of the hockey rink which we hope to brighten up with a variety of native meadow and tall grass prairie grasses and flowers that would have populated this area before it was urbanized. They should also be attractive to birds and pollinating bees and butterflies.

The awareness of the importance of pollinators is definitely on the rise and the plight of endangered pollinator species has been increasingly in the news lately . Here in Toronto, there is some interesting research being done into native bee populations and the effects different types of landscapes have on them. Scott MacIvor, a pHd student at York University has included Dufferin Grove Park as a research site which is very exciting. I can't speak with as much eloquence about the project as he can, and is planning to present some of his data to us at some point during the summer. The website for the project is quite informative though...http://www.tobee.ca/. And if you thought there wasn't enough pollinator action going at Dufferin Grove - think again : ) Coming up on May 28, there will be a Pollination Celebration of sorts here at the park hosted by bee friendly artist Sarah Peebles and Stephen Humphrey in collaboration with the above mentioned Clement Kent, among others. There will be music, art, crafts, food, etc...it should be a lot of fun. More details to come.

Lastly, we are also going to be offering a series of workshops over the course of the season, starting with one on container gardening in a few weeks time. We'd love to get your input regarding the topics relating to containers that most interest you. Some of the topics we plan to include are:

- site conditions, limitations, and challenges - aka how to capitalize on your (limited) space - materials: containers, soil, plants etc - watering issues - drainage - troubleshooting (fertilizing, nutrient deficiencies, pest management, etc)

Do let us know your thoughts, we want to make this as relevant to you all as possible. The date is not yet solidified but we will let you know soon.

I had better sign off before this entry gets any longer : )

So remember....

No Gardening session this week

Enjoy the long weekend! We look forward to seeing you next week....

Rachel Weston, April 17, 2011

I hope you are all having a pleasant week...apart from the chilly weather today, yeesh that was cold. I've been enjoying watching all of the different bulbs coming up and starting to bloom..first the crocus and the snow drops, then the scilla, now the daffodils...it's all so exciting : ) This Sunday, the weather will determine how much outdoor work we can do but we will be starting some more seedlings indoors. If the weather report proves to be wrong we'll get out into the veggie garden and plant some peas and spinach for some early crops too.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, April 17, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Looking forward to gardening with you...

Rachel Weston, April 10, 2011

Hi everybody,

This is just a friendly reminder that there is a gardening session this Sunday. We will be starting a few more veggie seedlings inside and if it's not too rainy we'll get out and clean up some of the veggie and flower beds too. By the way...the tomato seedlings we started have already started to come up : )

Gardening session this week: Sunday, April 10, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Rachel Weston, March 31, 2011

Hello all,

Our first gardening session last Sunday was a pleasant start to the season. A few of us - I think our youngest gardener was about 3 years old! - got our hands dirty seeding a variety of tomatoes and peppers in the rink house and made up a wish list for some of the other veggies and herbs we want to grow this year. A lot of the veggies that did well last year will be back (i.e. chard, kale, collards, carrots, squash, amaranth, tomatoes etc) but this year there will be a lot more beans, and our herb garden will be expanding as well. Thrillingly, the garlic is already coming up that was planted last November! Let the growing begin!

Please make a note that this Sunday we will not have a garden session but we will be back the following Sunday for more seed starting in the rink house and we'll probably get out in the garden beds to do some spring cleaning.

No gardening session this week - Gardening session NEXT week: Sunday, April 10, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

I will send out a reminder email next week as well.

Until then...Enjoy the warm weather (and the rain : ),

Rachel Weston, March 20, 2011

Good Evening Gardeners! I hope this email finds you well and feeling victorious for having survived what seemed like an interminably long winter! Now that it is officially spring, it certainly feels like the right time to get back into the swing of things in the gardens again! Next Sunday, March 27 we'll be having our first gardening session of the year. We'll be starting some seedlings in the rink house, discussing plans for the season, and getting acquainted (and reacquainted) with one another.

Gardening session this week: Sunday, March 27, 2 - 4 pm - snacks and drinks provided!

Looking forward to seeing you there! Pass the message along if you think anyone you know might be interested in joining us : )

Until then...enjoy the first week of spring!! (Hopefully the forecast is wrong about the snow...)

hosted by parkcommons.ca | powered by pmwiki-2.2.83. Content last modified on November 19, 2011, at 05:36 PM EST