February Garden notes: upcoming dates and garden education resources

February's garden notes:

I'm sure you've noticed the signs of spring everywhere. In our gardens the tulips, daffodils, irises, and hyacinth are all open. That means it's not too early to think about planting- let nature water your garden for you and take advantage of establishing early season plantings.  The February crop list includes arugula, beets, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, chard, collard greens, fava beans, kale, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, onion seeds and sets, peas, radish, spinach, strawberries, & turnips. We continue to visit the gardens for plot checks and to distribute compost. Coming up: 3/14- West Washington, 3/21- South Baker Beach, 3/28-MacArthur... all from 2-4pm.

Please come out and work with us in the gardens! Weekend hours:
Ft. Scott February Volunteer Program Saturday 2/25, 10am-noon (please RSVP)
MacArthur compost and mulch: Saturday 2/25, 1:30-3:30pm
South Baker Beach compost: Saturday 3/11, 10am-noon
Baker Beach compost: Saturday 3/11, 1-5pm
West Washington compost: Saturday 3/25, 10am-noon
Portola compost: Saturday 3/25, 1:30-3:30pm

Our Spring Equinox Pizza Potluck is on March 20-RSVP here

In case you didn't know, we have a great resource for gardening in San Francisco right in the Inner Sunset-Garden for the Environment has been teaching SF to garden and compost for 20 years! A full list of their spring workshops can be found later in this post. Click to read more about GFE and other places to learn about growing veggies in San Francisco:

Garden Pests: birds and rodents

A lot of garden plots, ours included, have been demolished this winter by garden pests. Bird damage is usually easy to identify- they leave little triangle shaped notches in the edges of leaves, or eat the tender middles of kale leaves. Do your very best to keep birds out of your bird exclusion netting if you have it installed- use many bungee cords, try attaching the bungees to the wire mesh on the bottom of the garden bed, and/or "sew" up the edges with bamboo stakes.





More troublesome are the rodents. A common culprit is the California meadow vole or meadow mouse Microtus californicus. You may have seen these cute, native rodents scurrying across sidewalks. Wikipedia article However, it could be voles, mice, or rats chewing holes in the netting and helping themselves to your tender vegetables. These are frustrating pests- they climb, dig, and chew!!

Meadow vole inside garden bed

check for holes in netting

rodent damage

rodent leavings

Here are a few ways to discourage rodent activity:

Put cloches over the young plants: 

Build yourself some wire mesh cages or line the edge of the box with hardware cloth. 1/4" is the recommended size for mice. These photos are from the Ace Hardware on Clement Street- you want the hardware cloth, not plastic netting or 'chicken wire'. 

 Here's one gardener closing up holes in the netting with hardware cloth:

On our beds at the nursery we've built large and small rodent exclusion cages:

We've also noticed that their favorite foods seem to be peas and members of the broccoli family. They avoid strongly flavored foods (arugula, mustard greens) and don't seem to be as fond of chard and lettuce. So you can selectively protect your plants. Also, try to keep the garden bed tidy so they feel less comfortable there- they like plant cover to hide under. Finally, cultivating the plot regularly- digging up the soil to make sure they aren't creating tunnels and actually living in your garden plot is important. The best news is that they seem to be most problematic in the winter, so let's hope they find other things to eat in the spring!

Happy Winter Solstice! January-April garden schedule

Hello Community Garden members!

Here we are at the turning point of the year- the shortest day. I love winter in the Bay Area; seeing the gardens and hills turn green, hiking amid waterfalls, hunting for the early wildflowers, and sowing seeds for spring planting. That's right, we've already started sowing seeds in anticipation of the new growing season! So far we're growing broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, kale, chard, peas, and more!

As we look towards 2017, we're doing a little restructuring to the schedule. Plot checks will happen 4 times a year at each garden- twice in the spring, and twice in the summer/fall. That means that when the day comes for your garden to have a plot check, it's a hard deadline. It will need to be tended (tidy, weeded) + pathways weeded. Evening visits are limited to once at each garden during our main planting seasons- March/April and July/August.

This year's planting cutoff is April 15- that is the day that the plots need to be full of growing plants. If you want to plant seeds, we suggest sowing by April 1 to make sure they have germinated and are visible on the 15th. We will be checking all plots at that time to make sure they are growing. To encourage planting during SF's prime season, we'll be at each garden with compost and seedlings (if available) prior to April 15:

• twice during the day (during the plot checks)
• once in the evening after daylight savings time
• one weekend session 
• and one centralized seedling/compost giveaway on Saturday, April 1, 1:30-3:30pm

Put these on your calendar! If you can't meet us but need compost, we suggest purchasing some from a garden center or come find us at another garden in the Presidio.

MacArthur Garden:

• 1/10, 2-4pm (plot checks)
• 2/25, 1:30-3:30pm (Saturday)
• 2/28, 2-4pm (plot checks)
• 4/5, 5-7pm

Portola Garden:

• 2/7, 2-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/22, 5-7pm
• 3/25, 1:30-3:30pm (Saturday)
• 3/28, 2-4pm (plot checks)

West Washington Garden:

• 2/14, 2-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/25, 10am-noon (Saturday)
• 4/3, 5-7pm
• 4/4, 2-4pm (plot checks)

South Baker Beach Gardens:

• 2/21, 2-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/11, 10am-noon (Saturday)
• 4/10, 5-7pm
• 4/11, 2-4pm (plot checks)

Baker Beach Gardens:

• 1/24, #1 @ 2-3pm, #2 @ 3-4pm (plot checks)
• 1/31 #3 @ 2-3pm, #4 @ 3-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/11 #1 @ 1-2pm; #2 @ 2-3pm; #3 @ 3-4pm; #4 @ 4-5pm (Saturday)
• 3/14 #1 @ 2-3pm, #2 @ 3-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/21 #3 @ 2-3pm. #4 @ 3-4pm (plot checks)
• 3/27 #1 @ 5-6pm; #2 @ 6-7pm
• 3/29 #3 @ 5-6pm; #4 @ 6-7pm

Pizza Party Potlucks at the Ft. Scott Community Garden! All are invited!!

• Spring Equinox event on March 20, 5pm
• Summer Solstice Soiree on June 20, 5pm
• Fall Harvest Happening on September 22, 5pm

Ft. Scott Volunteer Programs- all garden members invited to participate:

• Jan 16 MLK Day of Service sign-up to participate
• Jan 28, 1:30-3:30pm
• Feb 25, 10am-noon
• April 22, Earth Day (sign-up on presidio.gov)