Too Wet to Till - But Alternatives Available (TWTT - BAA )

April 26th is upon us, but it has rained in the past 4 days, so -- we will not be tilling the garden on Saturday, April 26th. But I do have some good news, Wasatch Community Gardens has a tiller which we can use as soon as the soil looks like it is tillable. But, there is no garden meeting, no garden tilling, and no garden party this weekend.

However, if you would like to do some garden-related work, here are some additional ideas/opportunities:

• help the CCNS Nursery School (housed in the RE Building during the week) -- their Landscape Committee will be doing some work in the church's playground area on Saturday morning, April 26th, 9-11 am or so
• pull out your dandelion weeding tool and weed the garden lawn, the church lawn, the house lawn, and/or the playground lawn - this is part of an effort to reduce the need for application of chemicals on the church's lawns
• rake some more straw off the garden - we cleared most of it, but not all - whatever is left, we plan to just till into the soil along with some compost - raked straw should either be bagged or placed up against the fence on the north side of the garden
• take a look at our garden blog [ http://gardenslcuu.blogspot.com/ ] and write an admiring and supportive comment or record any additional work you do in the garden
• start some tomato or pepper or other plants from seed in pots at home - we will need some "already started" plants when we are ready to plant -- if you need pots, there are a bunch behind the compost pile on the south side of the garden

What we still need:

• seeds and starters
• compost

One bit of disappointing news, our garden mailing list was a casualty of the church's move to a new web site. I will need to set up a new list - probably a Yahoo group. I will contact you with that information as soon as it is set up.

Straw, Straw, Straw

Three of us (Joan, Bob, and Bob's dog) worked on Saturday afternoon, clearing straw.


On the left is what the straw looked like at the beginning of April. When Bob and I started raking on Saturday, Becky had already made some marvelous straw piles which we were able to just bag. (Thank you, Becky!)


We raked and bagged 10 bags of straw (right). And unearthed a number of hoses and rocks, and a treasure or two!




And while it seemed like we bagged a lot of straw, there is more.

But we are hoping that what is left on top of the garden can be tilled into the soil. And that what is on the side of the garden can be used as ground cover to discourage the weeds.

Melanie's Magnificent Work (and some suggestions)

Melanie gardened for 3 hours this week and reported:

"I reclaimed the iris/tulip garden in the parking strip farthest north of the church- for which the neighbor next door was extremely grateful. "

"Learned some of the history of the garden. Hope to get more information both from CCNS and the church archives about which trees were planted as memorials for people. Just this one garden took a lot longer than I realized because it had to be done by hand because of the delicate tulip leaves, and also to pull out the grass. I did discover a lot of stones I used as a semi border."

"I also decided to "reclaim" the flagstone holding wall between the sidewalk and garden fence (photo is the "before" picture). I was in the process of this- and almost done- when my hand shovel broke. I took that as a sign that 3 hours was enough. Just as I was leaving I saw someone had left a big shovel against the shed, so I was able to reset even the 2 large flagstones that had meandered to the straight up position (by shoveling out a lot of dirt behind them). I didn't get to the rest of the parking strip. As I was leaving I also noticed that the garden just south of the church was in need of pruning the dead branches off the perennials- it was hard to see the spring bulbs blooming underneath them."

"I hated to leave the parking strip undone, so tonight I went back, and finished trimming the garden to the south of the church entry (south of Eliot Hall), and then reclaimed the other 2 gardens in the parking strip and raked the lawn. After 2 hours, and fading sunlight I was finally done! So- aside from weeding the garden in front of the fence- the "front" is done."

"I have a neighbor who has given me a ton of different kinds of seeds, some of them 1-2 years old- when you are ready let me know and I will bring them for you to look through for the garden. The garden in front of the garden fence, by the sidewalk, would be awesome planted in flowers. I would be willing at a later date to even weed the grass out of it if someone were to donate some flats of flowers for planting. (As long as I can water the area to make the grass easier to remove)."

"I brought lawn/leaf bags and rebagged some of the ones I had done on Sunday, and used the old clear trash bags to triple bag the rest- so they should be sturdy enough."

"This time I brought a broom to sweep off the sidewalk- if anyone is going to do more gardening in front of the garden fence a broom is most helpful."

"Hopes this allows the rest of you gardeners to focus on the garden behind the fence. "

Task - Raking the Area outside the Fence at the Sidewalk

If anyone is eager to get started, one additional task is to rake the parking strip and the sloped area just outside the garden (at the sidewalk).

There are lots of leaves there. So, be sure to bag the leaves and put them behind one of the compost piles.

And if no one has time for this, this week, no problem, we'll just include it in the work on April 19th.

Task - Getting the Garden Ready for Tilling

There is lots of straw here. Some of it is piled up against the fence. Leave the straw that is against the fence there.

Bag the straw that is on the garden, and and place the bagged straw behind the compost pile.

Then check the garden for broken hose, trash, rocks, and other items that might cause problems for a tiller.

April 19, 2008 - Next Garden CleanUp

Our next garden cleanup will be on Saturday, April 19, 2008, 1:30-3:30 pm. Bring large garbage bags for bagging the hay, work gloves, hand tools, shovels and rakes.