Do the Rain Dance

Farmer Paul asked if I would post the water guidelines on the blog:

• The Community Garden is following the Chatham Borough odd/even water restrictions since we have a Chatham water meter.  
• You already know all plots to the right as you walk in are ODD and all plots to the left are EVEN.  
• The only hours watering is allowed is from 6 to 9 in the morning and 6 to 9 in the evening. 

The Star Ledger reports that this may be the hottest July in New Jersey's meteorological history:

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/climatologist_says_july_has_po.html

and we have had a scant two inches of rain.

New Jersey is showing abnormally dry to drought conditions according to the USDA:

http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_state.htm?NJ,NE

Silver lining:  According to Pete Nitzsche, the Morris County Agricultural Extension Agent, the hot, dry weather is keeping fungal problems at bay.  And I must say that the tomatoes seem to like it, as long as you keep up with (legal) watering.

The Chatham Community Garden Hits the Streets

As the Community Garden is the new kid on the block, we wanted to participate in two popular Chatham events:  the Farmers' Market and the Independence Day Parade.

The Community Garden had a booth at the opening day of the Farmers' Market.  Fresh herbs for sale!  We sold herbs from the perimeter beds ($22 in pure profit for the Garden).  Thanks to Janice Piccolo for putting us in the shade.

We also gave out applications (for next year's waiting list) and information about our endeavors.

On July 3rd, we lined up on Hillside Avenue, waiting for the parade to begin:

Sarah brought her truck, a 1931 Model A Ford named Emma.

 

The marchers got prepared with costumes and candy.  (Well, actually Marta rode in the truck.)  Whole Foods in Madison graciously donated salt water taffy (yum!) and coupons for free bottles of barbecue sauce.  

By the way, Yolanda Fundora has added children's sizes and other goodies to the site with the Chatham Community Garden tee shirts.  I may have to get a hoodie for the fall, but I can't think of long sleeves right now.  Here's the link to the online store:

http://www.cafepress.com/gardenalphabet/7040581  

And our best gardeners sat in the back of the truck.

It was exciting to be in the parade, and it was over before we knew it.

If anyone has other pictures of the parade, please send them to me.

I hope you saw the Madison-Chatham This Week article about the garden.  They had great pictures of the gang.  The test is posted at http://madison.injersey.com/2010/07/07/digging-the-dirt-at-chatham-community-garden/

The Rise of the Tomato Plant

With this week's summer solstice just past, welcome to official inaugural tomato season at the Chatham Community Garden.  The tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum -- which translates to juicy wolf peach!) is a member of the Nightshade family.  Most heirloom tomatoes and many modern varieties are indeterminate, the technical term for a vining, ever-bearing habit.  'Big Boy,' 'Early Girl,' 'Brandywine' and most cherry tomatoes are indeterminate.

If you plant any varieties labeled "dwarf" or "bush" or "compact," it is probably determinate, meaning the fruit sets and ripens all at once.  'Rutgers' and 'Roma' are two examples of determinate varieties.

Farmer Paul suggested that I post about staking tomatoes.

Some people let their tomatoes vine along the ground, but I don't recommend it.  The fruit tends to get eaten by critters or quickly rot where it contacts the soil.  Plus in our little 10'X10' beds, they will take over!

Down at the garden tonight, I noticed many different staking strategies.  It will be interesting to compare them as the season progresses.

There are sturdy metal and string trellises.

Old sheets make very soft ties that won't saw into the plants.

Wow! Red cages with matching mulch.  With cages you need to push the young branches inside when they try to escape.

You can also combine wire cages and stakes.

I like these plastic rods.  They remind me of Tinker Toys.

Regular wooden stakes work really well.  Just keep up with the tying.  With indeterminate tomatoes you can also manage the size by pruning out the suckers (new side shoots).  If you do it in the morning when they have hydrated, you can just snap them off with your fingers.  This is especially important if you stake with those cool spiral stakes.

With visions of ripe tomatoes dancing in our heads.

Growing!

Have you seen our new entry posts?  Chatham artist and community-garden-supporter, Sarah Stanley, created these totems to brighten up our gates.  Your children (or your inner child) will enjoy looking at all of the details including the bird houses.

And the chickens!  Sarah is going to drive our Community Garden 4th of July "float" in her '31 Model A Ford pickup.  I'll be looking for volunteers (4-6 children) to ride in the back of the truck in the parade -- more about that tomorrow night.

Whole Foods graciously donated plants for the perimeter beds.  A flat of gorgeous, organic-certified arugula and parsley, three luscious pots of mesclun and some prizes for tomorrow night's meeting.   First 20 plots get a give-away, so come early.  Here is a picture of Beth and Robert, the Whole Foods folks who helped.  Thank you Whole Foods!

I planted everything yesterday so they would be watered in today.  Have a walk around the perimeter and see what's growing.  Hopefully we will be able to harvest enough to sell at the Farmer's Market.  More about that tomorrow night.

Other things are happening at the garden.  Have you seen the red mulch?

I noticed that the red mulcher's peppers survived the frost, so how about that?  Red mulch heats up the soil, even more effectively than black.

Also my plotmates did a great job fixing the area under the hose bib so that it isn't muddy.

I harvested (and ate) my first lettuce this week.  And was it ever yummy.

So far in the garden, I've spotted a blue jay, red wing blackbirds, and at least one very happy robin.  The robin seems quite the worm-eater and is quite pleased to have all of us digging away.  Let me know if you've seen any other birds.

Opening Day

It's seems somehow appropriate that our official opening day coincided with Derby Day, won by long-shot Super Saver.  There must be an analogy in there somewhere.

Thanks to all who came and supported the garden and the event.  Mayor Vaughan led the festivities and cut the ceremonial ribbon.  Here he is making his triangle for public-private-volunteer effort.

Families were busy planting in this summer-preview weather.  And look at those cute hats!

Here's my sweetheart, Kirke Bent, decked out in his gardening regalia.

And here's your's truly, grinning, as my father used to say, "like a mule eatin' briars."

What a great logo, Yolanda, and thanks for the photos!

The Next Generation of Gardeners

The best part of the Community Garden is seeing the little people playing with plants.  These photos were taken by friend-of-the-garden, Yolanda Fundora, who also designed the great banner.  By the way, you can order our Community Garden tee shirts with Yolanda's logo at http://www.cafepress.com/gardenalphabet

Happy Gardening

The garden officially opened on April 13.  It's so exciting to see the progress that everyone is making!  One person we'd like especially like to remember is Martha May.  A long-time Chatham resident, she always wanted the town to have a community garden.  While she didn't live to see it, she's with us in spirit.  I wish I had known her.  Doesn't she have a nice smile?

I think that Martha would also be smiling about the brass doorknob that I salvaged from a cute little house on Pine Street the day before it was torn down (I hope this isn't illegal -- the door was open, officer!)

As you've probably seen, we have a bungee cord for keeping the gate closed.  We're still trying to think of a more elegant solution, so if you have any ideas, let us know.

J&M donated that nice wheel barrow.  It has a solid tire, so we won't have to worry about filling the tire.  We'll probably buy another one, but we want to see how demand runs.  Let us know if there is a queue for it.

Have you seen Dick's beautiful raised beds?

Come see the perimeter beds.  We'll be having a plant up soon, so stay tuned.

And keep working on those paths.  (Go you Kathryn!) The official ribbon cutting is May 1 and 1:00.

Hurrah! The Fence is Up

Remember when our garden looked like two burial mounds?  This is a picture from February 1, Groundhog Day Eve.

Now the garden coming together, thanks to all of the volunteers who worked over the past weeks to make it happen.

In late March, Paul, Alice and John Eyre (not shown) worked on the water connections with the Borough Department of Public Works.  Yes, they hand dug this trench!

We will be watering our garden with town water (from artesian wells), run off the water main along Division Avenue.  DPW installed a water meter, and the Community Garden will pay for water use with the income from plot rentals.

There are brass fittings and flexible pipe runs underground from the meter to the garden.  If you go to the garden now, you will see the pipe running up to the posts that will support the spigots.  There will be three spigots running down the center path and one outside the garden to water the perimeter beds.

This past week was a beehive of activity.  Peter Coviello disced the compost and soil to a depth of one foot. 

Thanks, Pete, the soil looks great!  (The trench is for the groundhog/bunny barrier.)

Now for the fence.  

Here are Paul, Vince DeNave (the Borough engineer) and some of the Green Path crew, unwrapping the fencing materials.

Next the poles went in.  Did we mention it was really hot on Wednesday and Thursday?

Then the metal mesh was hung, small on the bottom, big on the top.

In this picture, Dick, John and Hector are putting up the angle brackets to hold a monofilament that acts as a deer barrier.

Sharon, Katey, Kathryn and Maryann, just finished closing up the ditch that holds the water pipe.  Yes, the soil was like concrete it that heat.

Mary is doing the same inside the garden.

Come on down and see the progress.  Stay tuned for an email alert about opening day!  

Community Garden at the Chatham Patch

Have you seen the coverage of the Community Garden at the Chatham Patch?  There is an article and a great photo of Paul and Marcy, presenting to the Borough Council.  (One correction to the article:  I'm donating the planting beds and various herbs and edible flowers rather than "beautification shrubs" -- whatever they are.)  Anyway, I've just subscribed to the Patch.  What an easy, interesting way to get local news.

Here is the address:

http://chatham.patch.com/articles/plots-assigned-at-community-garden#photo-257205

The next official event for the Community Garden is March 31, 7 pm in the Library's downstairs meeting room.  It will be an orientation, covering vegetable garden basics.  All are welcome.

The Romance of pH

As it's almost Valentine's Day, I thought, "What is more romantic than soil pH?" Soil pH (which stands for potential hydrogen, for those of you who need to know these things) is a measure of acidity or alkalinity. Think little strips paper from high school chemistry class.

Gardeners care about pH because it impacts a plant's ability to absorb water and nutrients from the soil.  In short, if the pH is wrong your plants will languish.

The pH scale has 14 points, with 7 being neutral, above 7 being basic (akaline) and below 7 being acidic.  To quote the Rutgers Cooperative Extension Service, "A slightly acid soil, with a pH near 6.5, is optimum for growing most vegetables."  For more details, see njaes.rutgers.edu

Mike Bucuk took a soil sample from our garden space last fall and sent it off to the lab for testing.  Our soil under the turf was 5.9 -- a bit acidic.  Earlier this month we added 66 cubic yards (10-12 dump trucks) of very aged compost with pH of 7.5, spread across the planting areas.  Once it is tilled in spring, our pH should be just right.   (The lab also checked for soil contamination, not knowing if anything had been dumped there over the years. Good news, no problems there.)

For a gardener, the right pH is heart-warming.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are!

Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, and this year we have something special to celebrate.  Today at the Community Garden the combined forces of the Borough Department of Public Works, Peter Coviello Contracting, and Green Path Landcare composted the beds.  When the dump trucks arrived the organic matter was steaming.  Those little bacteria are working so hard at decomposition that they are heating everything up!

Looks like giant groundhogs have been digging:

But the backhoe is coming, the backhoe is coming:

What a great little machine.  Thank you, Peter Coviello.

See how smooth.  Do drop by and see it.

If the groundhog sees his shadow tomorrow, we are supposed to be in for six more weeks of winter.  Forecast is for partly cloudy, so we'll see.  But either way, get your applications in now for the 2010 gardening season.