What Happens at a Work Party?
If you work at Brian's Garden, it's quite a lot!
5-29-24
If you ever wondered what went into the vegetables that are delivered to the Food Bank, here's an example of how one garden organizes and produces it's donated pounds.
Dear BG Team -
Tomorrow is forecasted to be partly sunny with temps in the upper 50s. We’ll start the work party at 10 am.
This Week’s Harvests
We had a great Monday 5/27 evening harvest for the Brinnon Food Bank. Jordan, Lys, Lindsay, Mark, Beth and Amber harvested lots of salad mix (leaf lettuce and mizuna), kale (red Russian and lacinato), broccoli, chard, 3 bunches of radishes, bunching onions, rhubarb, and herbs… cilantro, parsley and chives. Denny brought us some napa cabbage and mint from her garden to add to our delivery… and Beth brought us some rhubarb from her neighbor’s garden! We sent a total of 26.75 pounds to the Brinnon Food Bank.
We also had a great Wednesday 5/29 morning harvest for the Port Townsend Food Bank.
Diane, Mark, Marta, Lys and Amber harvested a lot of salad mix along with some watercress and spinach for a total of 23.0 pounds.
Thanks to May 23rd Work Party Volunteers!
We had a very successful work party!
Lys worked hard on the irrigation system, digging trenches and running the main lines. Each day we are getting closer to a functioning system!
The weeding saga continues.
Mike weeded the northeast corner of the garden along the fence as part of Project Bunny. Kathy S did some intricate weeding amongst the carrots and also tackled Rows 1 and 2. Mark did some intricate weeding amongst the beets and radicchio. Diane weeded 3 beds on the southeast corner of the garden. Mehdi started tackling the west fence line and added some more hog fuel to the outer aisle. And Karl also WEEDED!
There is always something to plant. Mark planted some more bok choy starts in Bed 7N.
Pests are popping up. Denny and Amber created sticky traps for the flea beetles that are attacking our bok choy and mizuna, and also started rabbit-proofing the north side of the fence. Project Bunny will continue...
Tasks for May 30th Work Party
A garden variety of tasks this week.
- Irrigation: cut long sections of drip tape in half and start running them down all beds (3 per bed)
- Pest control:
- cutworms: spread diatomaceous earth around plant stems to combat cutworms in Beds 3N, 4N, 7N, 3S and 9S (use duster applicator found inside bags)
- rabbits: finish weeding the outer perimeter, attach rabbit-proof fencing (chicken-wire) and sheet mulch with hog fuel
- Weeding - beds and aisles:
- bindweed is really popping up and needs to be dug out
- weed between deer fence and garden fence, then add hog fuel
- carefully weed next to beds where we directly seeded (as seedlings are still very small)
- weed celery bed
- finish weeding the inside perimeter of the fence and sheet mulch with hog fuel
- add additional hog fuel to sparse aisles
- Planting - direct seeding:
- carrots and carrot tape (Bed 5N)
- beets (Bed 7N)
- Osborne sugar snap peas (Bed 1N - all along west side of tunnel)
- Mammoth snow peas (Bed 1S - all along west side of tunnel)
- pole beans (Bed 1N and Bed 1S)
- Fertilization:
- add Farmyard Blend around bok choy to help with bottom leaves yellowing
- Construction:
- Create a gate in the fence near the bulk compost and soil piles (using the two framed, galvanized panels)
- Hang wooden gate, a lovely donation from Beth, between shed and chicken coop (need to determine how to secure and what hardware we need)
- Bed preparation:
- prepare more grow bags for tomatillos (mix compost and garden soil with fertilizer amendments)
- add more soil to the potato bags to mound up the potatoes, then seed radishes on top
We hope to see you for some FUN in the garden!
- Amber, Lys and Denny
Co-managers at Brian's Food Bank Garden
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