Fusarium in our peas

Beets & carrots - our first beet harvest occurred this week

Tomatoes, marigolds & beans

Peppers

Our peas began to wilt and looked unwell. Derrick and I took a sample to our crop pathogen expert, Scott, and he has suggested they have fusarium. Because this has been such a wet year and because of our rich soil, this was likely unavoidable. He suggests rotating the peas and seeding earlier so the plants can get a jump start on the fungus. Dave has since sprayed them out. 

Diseased pea roots

Diseased pea stem & leaves

The Economic Value of a Rooftop Community Garden

I recently read an article on the economic value of a community garden by Ngaio Hotte. This garden is located on the rooftop of a YWCA in Vancouver. The learning and interacting that occurs with these types of collaborative projects is known as "building social and knowledge capital" and has an actual dollar value.

The author of this article valued the service-learning, increased property value, volunteer effort, boost to corporate revenue at several thousand dollars. (For example, Employee Volunteer Programs have been show to boost company revenues by 0.5%.)

A community garden is worth much more than the harvested vegetables!

http://www.farmfolkcityfolk.ca/PDFs_&_Docs/MagazinePDF/FFCF%20Spring%202012.pdf

First harvest

We have harvested lettuce and swiss chard for 2 weeks now. We've delivered over 50 lbs to the food bank.