Results of the recent weather

Our lettuce and tomatoes took a bit of a battering with the recent hail, rain and wind. However, it is early in the growing season yet and we are sure they will recover. The garden has been very wet - too wet to work in. As such, the weeds have flourished. This Thursday, we will be having a weeding social. Come on out after work and help us pull weeds.

The Pleasure of Eating

This was borrowed from the Kitchen Gardeners International newsletter.

One of the tastiest morsels of edible advice I've ever read which moves us towards greater food literacy did not require 400 pages or even 4 words. It came from Wendell Berry's classic 1990 essay The Pleasure of Eating and can be summed up in just 2 words: eat responsibly.  He goes on to list 7 specific things we can do to achieve this:

1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. 
2. Prepare your own food. 
3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and buy the food that is produced closest to your home. 
4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist. 
5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. 
6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening.
7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.

Tomatoes and electric fence!

This week we planted out tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, tomatillos, marigolds and Evans' Cherry trees. We also put up the electric fence. Remember to turn it off or step well over before you work in the garden! We also had some new volunteers out to help - thank you!

Peas beans peppers

Yesterday, peas and beans were seeded and peppers were planted out. Just before an evening shower.

On Thursday, if it doesn't rain, we will set out the electric fence (the deer have been lying in the garden) and we will plant out tomatoes, tomatillos and eggplant.

Seeds in the ground

Dave managed to get seeds in the ground yesterday just before all this rain. He planted carrots, red beets, swiss chard, Grand Rapids and Buttercrunch lettuce.

Garden Meeting this Thursday

Hi volunteers and other interested gardeners,

Please join us at our information meeting this Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 12 noon at the Lethbridge Research Centre Cafeteria Conference Room.

Contact us - LRCgardenATyahoo.ca

Spring 2013

Yesterday we hit record setting highs in Southern Alberta. Lethbridge touched 21 deg Celsius.

The garden is waking from its wintery slumber and our seed order is in.

Stay tuned for our initial volunteer meeting!

Final harvest tally

Our final harvest occurred last Friday - October 19. Dave had planted some late season radishes and he harvested 3 lbs of the "sweetest radishes ever".

That brings our final harvest total to 3337.5 lbs. This is valued by the Interfaith Food Bank at $6675.

Thank you to everyone who helped out this year. Rest up for a few months and we'll be recruiting again spring 2013!

Final harvest totals by crop (in pounds):

beets	454
carrots	1124
eggplant	108.5
green beans	118.5
green peppers	121
hot peppers	60
lettuce	135.5
swiss chard	99
tomatoes	1114
radishes	3

Carrot harvest

 Last Tuesday we had about 17 volunteers to help harvest. This made it go quickly and we finished just before the big dust storm hit.

Tomato harvest

Harvest update

We have now harvested something from each of our planted vegetables, except for our beans. In total, we have delivered over 600 lbs of produce to the food bank. Our lettuce is nearing the end but our tomatoes and peppers are just beginning.