Monday, February 25, 2019

Upcoming dates/ aphids + weed links

Hi Presidio Community Gardeners!

First, thanks to those of you who let me know that the blog posts arrive in your email the day after I post them. That's really good for me to know. I'm sorry to those of you who missed the bonus seedling give-away day- it was really a last minute decision to work on Saturday once I saw how much rain was expected today.

Upcoming calendar dates:

The next planned seedling and compost give-away will be on Saturday, March 9 at the Ft. Scott Community Garden. I'm going to extend the hours from 10am to 3pm. Please mark this on your calendar if you want to come, as I'll be on vacation from tomorrow until March 7 so won't be able to send a reminder until the day before.

April 16 is the spring planting cut-off but March is the best time to plant (if you didn't do it in February).

What's happening in the garden?

Aphids! They are starting to be out in force, covering the bottom of kale and all sorts of other plants in the Brassicaceae family. Check the underside of leaves and the tender growing centers. You can try to wash or brush them off, spray with insecticidal soap, or remove severely infested leaves.  

Here are links about many of the common weeds you may find in your plot. Understanding weed ecology is key to effective weed management! Does it spread via runners? Underground bulblets? Seeds? UC IPM is a good starting place. [IPM = integrated pest management]
Chickweed
Popweed
Oxalis
Sowthistle
Bindweed
Groundsel
Woodsorrel

We're also clearing out last year's crops to make space for spring planting. Here is a cabbage and a potato- they gave us a laugh!

Enjoy your gardens!!

Friday, February 22, 2019

Saturday 2/23 seedling give-away/ GFE March classes

There are a few more sunny days ahead, before another round of wet weather. We've been busy filling our garden beds with lettuce, chard, spinach, mustard greens, onions, peas, zucchini, and brassica seedlings + radish & carrot seeds.

Good news! if you want another chance to pick up vegetable seedlings, I'll be at the Ft. Scott Community Garden tomorrow, Saturday 2/23, from 10am-1pm with leftover seedlings. There won't be any compost however. If you haven't returned pots and buckets from last Saturday- please drop them off for re-use. Thanks!

Seedlings available:
Red cabbage
Green cabbage
Chinese cabbage
Lettuce
Romanesco (only 5)
Cauliflower
Chard
Kale (only 3)
Mustard greens
Spring at the historic Ft. Scott Community Garden

Spring Learning at Garden for the Environment

Garden for the Environment will offer the following workshops in March 2019. All will be at Garden for the Environment, San Francisco’s teaching garden, at 7th Avenue and Lawton Street (1590 7th Avenue). Founded in 1990, our garden offers informative, hands-on workshops on most Saturdays that teach Bay Area residents how to grow climate-appropriate gardens and food, make compost, and conserve water. 

For more information, visit our website at 
www.gardenfortheenvironment.org.



UPCOMING VOLUNTEER DAYS, WORKSHOPS, AND EVENTS

Regular Educational Volunteer Hours
When: Wednesdays and Saturdays, 10am to 3pm
Cost: Free
More Information: bit.ly/GFEVolunteer
Join us in the garden on Wednesdays and Saturdays to help with garden maintenance tasks. You’ll work alongside staff and fellow volunteers on a range of activities like composting, vegetable planting and harvesting, pruning, and weeding. The best way to learn is by doing, and we promise you’ll learn a lot working in the garden with us. No registration needed -- you can come and go at any time, and volunteering at GFE will always be free. Bring lunch and picnic with us at noon!


Urban Composting
When: Saturday, March 2nd, 10am to 12pm
Cost: Free!
Sponsored by the Department of the Environment
Learn how to make your very own compost! The backbone of every healthy garden, compost improves all soil types and can be the difference between success and failure with many plants. In this class, we will teach you how to make compost in your backyard, and introduce you to our worms that make their own special fertilizer. Come learn what you can do to improve your garden and prevent organic waste from ending up in the landfill.


Beginning Beekeeping: The Basics and Starting a Hive (rescheduled)
When: Saturday, March 2nd, 10am to 12pm
Cost: $25
So you're thinking of becoming a beekeeper? This workshop is an introduction to bees and beekeeping practices whether you're starting a backyard hive or are just curious about bees. We'll cover equipment and tools needed, bee biology basics, and provide practical knowledge to get your beekeeping journey started.
The class is designed for absolute beginners so no prerequisite knowledge is required. There will be a hands-on hive inspection, weather permitting. Protective clothing will be provided.


The Edible Garden in March
When: Saturday, March 9th, 10am to 12pm
Cost: $25
Learn to take full advantage of the unique San Francisco gardening climate, where you can grow your own fruits and vegetables year-round. This workshop will focus on growing your own transplants, what seeds to start indoors and outdoors, and successful transplanting of seedlings. Bring questions and we'll do our best to answer them so you can reap a bountiful harvest!


NEW! -- Family Urban Nature (FUN) Afternoon in the Garden
When: Saturday, March 23rd, 1 to 3pm
Cost: FREE
During this FUN two-hour workshop, families will learn together about the natural world. Garden Educators from GFE will lead our educational hands-on activities where you will have the chance to do a tasting tour of the garden, turn garden scraps into compost, observe our worms doing important work, plant food for the urban farm and pot up a pollinator plant to take home!
FUN workshops are for children ages 5-12 and all children must be accompanied by an adult.
This FREE workshop is sponsored by the EPA, in partnership with Education Outside.


Introduction to Sustainable Gardening Series – ONLY A FEW SPOTS LEFT!
When: Saturdays, March 9th, 16th, and 23rd -- 10am to 12pm
Cost: $30 for the full 3-part series. You’ll receive $30 in gift cards (One $10 gift card for either the Urban Farmer Store or Cole Hardware at each workshop for a total of $30 in gift cards if you attend all three workshops).
Register: http://bit.ly/GFESustainableMar2019
Sponsored by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission
The Introduction to Sustainable Gardening series is a three-part workshop series designed to help you transform your backyard into a thriving, sustainable garden. This course will teach you everything you need to know to plant flourishing perennial gardens that save water and attract pollinators and beneficial insects.
San Francisco is a beautiful and unique city, with mild temperatures year-round and dry, foggy summers. Learn what plants are adapted to our coastal climate and grow without the need for toxic pesticides or large amounts of water. This course will focus on native and drought-tolerant ornamental gardens, but will cover broad topics that can also apply to vegetable gardening.


Dig In! - Six-Part Edible Gardening Series – ONLY A FEW SPOTS LEFT!
When: Saturdays, March 30th – May 4th, 10am to 12pm
Where: Garden for the Environment, 1590 7th Ave. at Lawton St., San Francisco
Cost: $175
Do you want to get your hands dirty? Learn how to garden this spring! This six-part workshop series is designed after our renowned Get Up! training program and will teach you everything you need to start growing food in your backyard.

San Francisco provides a perfect climate for growing food year-round food! Even a small backyard space can be enough to grow healthy veggies. In this six-part workshop series, we will first build a raised bed together, and then you will learn how to make healthy soil, build a simple irrigation system, plant and care for veggies, and harvest your crops.

Garden for the Environment
7th Avenue and Lawton Street, San Francisco, CA 94122
www.gardenfortheenvironment.org
(415) 558-8246



Friday, February 15, 2019

Reminder: Garden Resource Day tomorrow 10am-1pm

Hello!

Do you have your garden cloches in the form of plastic bottles ready to cover seedlings? Great! Tomorrow is garden resource day and there is a greenhouse full of plants. These little guys haven't had a chance to spend any time outside yet (usually plants are "hardened off" in transition from greenhouse to garden), so any extra protection you can offer will be appreciated.

Next week is looking dry and sunny, so it's a great time to plant! Hopefully all that crazy weather is behind us - two large trees fell at the garden, thankfully missing the brand-new shed + the road and porta-john!

Other spring supplies to consider:
It's  a good time to ensure that any bird netting you have is able to be securely closed; bungees only last for a season or so. Try using that stash of chopsticks in the back of the junk drawer to weave between the netting. And if you have holes from rodents, I'll have extra netting you can cut to patch the hole. We've found small zip ties work especially well.






Don't forget to plan to return any buckets and pots you take with you tomorrow [do you have any in your garden plot to return?]. We have run out of pots and have more seedlings ready for transplanting. Compost is available, but limited to 3 buckets- first come, first served until it's gone.

I'll be at the Ft. Scott Community Garden tomorrow from 10am until about 1pm. The road is quite eroded so please park closer to the garages (without blocking access) and use a cart or wheelbarrow to transport compost etc. See you there!



Jean Koch
Landscape Stewardship: Community Gardens
The Presidio Trust

1216 Ralston Ave., P.O. Box 29052
San Francisco, CA 94129
(415) 561-7639 office
(415) 850-7526 mobile
www.presidio.gov
 
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Tuesday, February 5, 2019

Garden Resource Day postponed to 2-16/ Caring for perennial herbs

Hi all!

I hope your 2019 is off to a great start. Our greenhouse is packed with seedlings, the new shed is getting new shelving, and the beds have continued to produce a variety of greens, broccoli, romanesco, carrots and radishes along with a smattering of weeds. Plot checks went on during 3 weeks in January and it was lovely to see so many tended gardens, some full of crops! If your plot still needs to be weeded, re-checks will start on February 19 and continue until I leave for vacation on the 27th. Here's a great article about understanding the weeds in your garden.

The first garden resource day of the year was scheduled for this coming Saturday. However, the seedlings that I sowed on 1/3 and 1/7 need another week in the greenhouse to be large enough for transplanting. I'm postponing the February Garden Resource Day to next Saturday, 2/16, from 10am-1pm. If weekends don't work with your schedule, seedlings will also be available from 2-4pm on Thursday, 2/21. Both of these will be at the main garden at Ft. Scott. There will be green and red cabbage, Chinese cabbage, kale, peas, lettuce, spinach, chard, broccoli, and cauliflower.
seedlings in the greenhouse on 2/4

This month in the garden
February is a great month to plant your garden- you don't need to remember to water! Pam Peirce calls January-March San Francisco's secret season. If you take advantage of it, you can even have crops planted and harvested before the spring planting deadline of April 16! Radishes grow in 30-45 days and most leafy greens will flourish. If you are planning to plant seedlings, I'd recommend collecting some clear plastic jugs/ juice bottles to use as mini-greenhouses. The plants will appreciate the extra warmth and protection from pests for a few weeks. Just keep an eye out for critters. Snails and slugs love the damp weather just as much as your vegetables. Sluggo is an organically approved option to control them.

February crop list: arugula, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, chard, collard greens, fava beans, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, onions, parsnip, pea, potatoes, radish, spinach, strawberry plants, turnips

Pruning perennials
Do you have rosemary, lemon verbena, sage or other perennial herbs in your garden plot? Take the time to learn how to prune them to maximize healthy new growth and keep the plants to a manageable size. Rosemary will take up half of a garden bed if left alone and guess who has to dig it out when you move away? Me :) So, take charge of your plants- it's up to you to decide how big they get! Here are links to a few articles, but many great videos are out there too. Pruning is also a good time to check underneath and around your perennials and find the pests that are probably hiding in the undisturbed corners of your garden bed.
Lemon Verbena
Rosemary
Lavender
Culinary Sage

Additional flowers on the OK to plant list
I know many of you would love to have a few more flower options for your garden beds. Here are a few I'll be adding to the approved list:

Thyme-leaved fuchsia
Ranunculus asiaticus (the bulb, not the California native R. californicus)
Tulips (already on the list, but helpful info included in the link)
Daffodils
Dahlias
Sunflowers- consider dwarf varieties if you have netting on your bed and harvest the flowers before they make seeds (they are appealing to rodents, however)
Scented Geraniums- This is another plant to keep pruned to garden bed size.