Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Free Wildflower Seedlings: Cardinal Flower

Virginia has been growing wildflowers from the seeds that she gets as a member of the North Carolina Botanical Garden. And because she believes in spreading the love, she'd like to give some of those seedlings to friends of Savasana Community Garden.
















Right now, she has about six cardinal flower (lobelia cardinalis) seedlings that are ready to find new homes. According to the Botanical Garden, cardinal flower is a hummingbird favorite with its "striking red flowers," and it requires average soil and sun to part-shade. Read more about this plant here.

If you would like a seedling or two (or more), please leave a comment on the blog or contact Virginia by phone or email. The seedlings will be a distributed on the usual first-come-first-served basis. Enjoy!

There will be more wildflowers to come!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Remember Kids: Safety First!

The garden has received several days of steady rain, which has been great for the veggies but not so good for the gardeners, who were left with slippery and treacherous paths between the garden beds. To remedy this, Peggy and Virginia spread several bags of rubber mulch between the beds this afternoon.

We also snipped a few herbs (the basil smells amazing), harvested the rest of the radishes and some lettuce (and replanted both), and thinned out the bok choy to give the remaining plants more room to grow. Salad, anyone?
















This is how the garden is looking today - fabulous, no?





Sunday, May 9, 2010

Our First Harvest: Radishes!


We harvested our first crop of bright red, crunchy, and delightfully spicy "Cherry Belle" radishes after yoga class on Thursday - Raphanus sativus never tasted so good! We will plant another row in the next week or two because we just can't get enough!

Our zucchini and tomato plants are starting to flower, and everything else looks happy and healthy.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

The best defense is a good e-fence!

As promised, here are some photos of our new electric fence, which appears to be successfully protecting our garden from the local rabbits and squirrels. It's a very simple system, with aluminum wire (about 75 feet) strung through metal cotter pins attached to 2-foot plastic rods. We strung two wires, one about six inches above the ground, and the second about two inches above that. The wire is connected to an energizer on Peggy's deck, which is grounded by a 2-foot rebar sunk into the ground below.
















Now we just have to be careful about not tripping on the wires as we garden! Peggy's going to devise a flagging system to help us remember that the wire is actually there.

As for the garden itself, we have some new friends in the form of toads (who were instantly given a toad house, thanks to Peggy) and some new seedlings (because even if you're urgently shopping at Lowe's for electric fencing, it's hard not to cruise through the veggie and herb aisle!). We lost the Hillbilly tomato (which did start out in poor shape) and all of the cucumber seedlings (due mostly to overwatering, as mentioned previously). But from Lowe's we gained parsley, replacement cucumbers, sweet potato "Beauregard" (it seemed like a good idea at the time!) and...um...asparagus (you see, asparagus looks a lot like dill when you're in a hurry...). Jane's husband Greg has also donated a Roma tomato plant.

The new cucumber seedlings have gone into the large garden bed, the parsley is now in one of the herb tubs, and the sweet potatoes are in the new tomato bed, along with the Roma tomato and the accidental asparagus. (We took a "let's throw it in the tomato bed and see what happens" attitude toward the asparagus because we really don't know what we're doing there.) Peggy has also rustled up some actual dill, which will find its way to a herb tub very soon.

And now, with any luck, we just sit back and watch it all thrive.