Varieties

Here are some of our vegetable varieties for 2011.

Grand Rapids Lettuce

Grand Rapids Lettuce - Loose leaf. 45 days to harvest. Good tolerance to tip burn. Well adapted for outdoor use.

Buttercrunch Lettuce - Head lettuce. 60 days to harvest. One of the best tasting loose leaf types. Harvest over a 2 week period. Thick, crisp leaves are very tender.
 

Odyssey Lettuce - Head lettuce. 62 days to harvest. Dark green butterhead/boston type with excellent tip burn and bolting tolerances.  Heads are slightly larger and heavier than Baja.  Use for fresh market or processing.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard

Bright Lights Swiss Chard (hyb.) - 55 days to harvest. Unique blend of many colors. Mature plants average 50 cm with savoyed leaves.  Colors fade when cooked.

Centennial Rocket Tomato - Bush type. Only half the leaves of normal Tomatoes--so most of the energy goes into early medium-size fruit. Heirloom Seed.

Prairie Pride Tomato - Bush type. Abundant, flavorful, low acid content, medium-sized fruit on sturdy, compact plants. Heirloom Seed.

Mamma Mia Hybrid (paste tomato) - 60 days to harvest. Mamma Mia is a meatier, firmer fleshed fruit, just right for a thick and rich spaghetti sauce, or for salsa and any other recipes requiring a rich Tomato taste. Staking type.

Early Prolific Hybrid Pepper - 55 days to harvest. Produces far earlier than any other sweet Pepper on the market. The fruit is 3-lobed, with medium thick walls and a mild sweet flavor.

Black Bell II Eggplant - 58 days to harvest. Early maturing oval round fruit are dark in color, good quality. Plant is a little more compact than Black Bell, tolerant to Tomato Mosaic virus.

Annie Oakley II Hybrid Okra

Annie Oakley II Hybrid Okra - 48 days to harvest. (F1 hybrid). Pods are ridged, medium green, tapered, remain tender up to 4 1/2 in./12 cm long. Spineless, dwarf plants.

Bonanza Yellow Marigold/French - The Bonanza series is larger flowered than the Janie or Boy types. Blooms average 2 in./5 cm. Bushy 8 in./20 cm plants are early flowering and provide better hot summer garden performance than Janie types. Bonanza Bolero is an All America Winner. 

Early April progress update

The tomatoes have been seeded - both our garden tomatoes and our Tomato Plant Project tomatoes. Thank you Drusilla! The marigolds will be started this week, too.

Our garden is still far to wet to consider seeding. At least there are a few good gardening workshops to attend (see the poster below for the Urban Farmer sessions and the calendar for upcoming events).

Come on sun!

Seen in downtown Toronto.....

Volunteer Meeting - a dozen new recruits!

The Volunteer Meeting was a success with about a dozen new people signing up to help with the garden. These new volunteers have been distributed among our teams. Thank you to our new recruits!

Our first job will be planting our tomato seeds for our Tomato Plant Project. This will likely happen next week (the first week of April). Emails will be sent.

The Tomato Pepper Eggplant Okra Team (TPEO) will start their seeds the week after.

Upcoming Gardening Events

These are also posted on the calendar. Click on the poster to enlarge.

Volunteer Meeting - March 30 12:15pm

The seeds have arrived

Some of our seeds have arrived in the mail. Tomato and pepper seedlings will be started in a couple weeks.

What's new in the garden this year?
How about okra and swiss chard!

The planning begins...

We held our first meeting of 2011 recently. We discussed plans for the 2011 garden and the searching through seed catalogues has begun. Our garden plot soil has been amended with the addition of compost and used potting mix. We will surely see improved harvest yields from these amendments as well as enjoy the improved soil texture. Last year, the soil crusted over like clay and we had to help the seedlings break through!

We plan on increasing the area of our garden slightly and plan to add a raspberry patch.

We also have some other exciting projects planned - to be revealed later on!

If you are an employee of the Lethbridge Research Centre, email lrcgarden@yahoo.ca to volunteer. We will host a volunteer and information meeting in March.

Good bye to 2010

As 2010 draws to a close, I think we can all be grateful for what we have - our friends, our family, our comfortable lives. We can be proud of our effort for the 2010 Garden and I look forward to 2011 and the second year of our Food Banks' Garden. While the snow covers the ground and darkness comes far too early, we will soon be planting seeds in the greenhouse and tilling the newly warmed soil.

Happy New Years!

And for interest's sake, here is the Farmer's Almanac weather forecast for the prairies for 2011....

Annual Weather Summary: November 2010 to October 2011

Winter will be 2 to 4 degrees C colder than normal, on average, with the coldest weather in mid-January and other cold periods from the second half of December through much of January and in mid- and late February. Precipitation will be a bit above normal, with above-normal snowfall, especially in Manitoba. The heaviest snowfalls will occur in early and mid-November, late December, and late February.

April and May will be much cooler than normal, with near-normal precipitation. Snowfall will be above normal, with late-season snowfalls in early and mid- to late April.

Summer will be drier than normal, with temperatures below normal in Alberta and Saskatchewan and above normal in Manitoba. The hottest temperatures will occur in early to mid-July and mid-August.

September and October will be drier and slightly warmer than normal.

Feedback from the Lethbridge Interfaith Food Bank

"The total weight of produce brought in was 2079.50 pounds, for a value of $4159!  This is absolutely amazing, and considering we didn't have such a great growing season, your garden was definitely one that kept our stock up enough to ensure enough produce for our clients.  Please pass along our thanks to your crew, you guys did a fantastic job!"