Maple Community Garden

1) A quick reminder that we still need to conserve water even if it rains. Please be sure to water by hand, using either a bucket or a hose with nozzle to control the amount of water you are using.  There has not been enough moisture to get us back to a normal water level after the extremely hot and dry summer that we’ve had.

2) This is the time of year to start thinking about bulbs for spring if you wish. Choose healthy, firm bulbs and store them in a cool, dry place until each type of bulb is ready to plant over the next couple months. Adding a small amount of bone meal in each hole when planting will help establish the root system and promote flowering.

3) It’s also a good time to harvest seeds from flowers in your gardens to save for next year. If you’re inspired, throw some over the North fence to help create a bit of a wildflower garden out there to improve the look of that side and provide more food for the bees too 🙂

4) Keep weeding and deadheading, and keep grass trimmed in and around your plot as usual.

5) Keep picking produce regularly, and also herbs for drying so you can have a little taste of summer later in the year!

6) When summer veggies and flowers are finished, remove the spent plants and compost healthy parts of the plants.

7) Please do not compost diseased leaves, shoots and plants. If disease-causing spores, fungus or viruses are present, they will survive in compost.  Please take a moment to review the information and photos about disease management to help keep all Maple Community Garden plots healthy http://maplecommunitygarden.ca/gardening-resources/disease-management/

8) Divide perennials like peonies, asters, Goldsturm daisies and Autumn Joy sedums. Make sure you have 3-5 “eyes” on each division of the peony for a solid new plant.

9) Begin fall garden cleanup of your plot, and prepare the soil if you plan to grow fall and/or winter vegetables.

10) Set out transplants, seedlings of fall/winter vegetables like Spinach, Lettuce, Purple flowering Broccoli, Chard and Kale. Plant Garlic later in October. West Coast Seeds has a brochure that provides lots of good information on their website called Planting Guide for Fall & Winter Harvests

11) Amend your soil with Dolomite lime (1 cup for each of our small beds should do) and then one week later add mushroom manure or compost. Dig in some organic fertilizer as well (see recipe below) and you are ready to plant fall veggies. Most veggies will grow well with this addition of nutrients, other veggies like potatoes prefer acidic soil (more on this in the spring).

12) Maple Community Garden is an organic gardening area, and organic fertilizer contains many micronutrients of value for plants which release slowly without washing away as fast as chemical fertilizers.

Recipe for Homemade Organic Fertilizer

1 part Blood meal           Nitrogen (N)  

2 parts Bone meal           Phosphorus (P)

1 part Kelp meal              Potassium (K)

The above ingredients can be found at most garden centres and feed stores, and this recipe provides an N-P-K ratio of approximately 4-5-4 to 5-8-5.  Nitrogen promotes vigorous growth, phosphorus improves flowering and root system growth, and potassium assists with fruit quality, root growth and reduction of disease.

As you may know, bee populations have been under serious threat, due to habitat destruction, pesticide use and natural factors such as fungi infestations.  Maple Community Garden established a number of hives of honey bees a few years ago to help increase the populations in our gardening area.  These hives are managed by individual members acting as beekeepers responsible for the health and maintenance of the hives. There are also many ways that all garden members can improve and support populations of local bees.

While honeybee and bumblebee populations have been hard hit, other species, of which there are many, can be encouraged to populate and at least partly make up for the decline in numbers.  Of particular interest are the species known collectively as “Mason” bees.  They take their name from their habit of closing the door to their nest with a layer of mud, as a mason might do.  They vary greatly in size and may be unrecognizable as bees.  The good news is that, while they are efficient pollinators, they are not aggressive, do not normally bite, and do not swarm, being solitary bees that do not live in colonies.  Therefore, you can assist the cause of bee re-population without taking any personal risk!

There are a number of website links at the bottom of this article that include general information applying to all bees, as well as specific information for those interested in creating and managing a solitary bee habitat.   Here are some suggestions on how you can help create a better, bee-friendly environment.

Bee Bath

• Place a plate of water at ground level, shallow enough to evaporate over the course of the day. This will help support bees, not mosquitoes.

• Put a few dry rocks and/or flowers in the water for bees to land on, they cannot land on a water surface.

• Placing the plate near infested plants will attract natural predatory insects, which will help reduce unwanted insects, such as aphids.

Bee Food

Bees can use pollen and nectar from a variety of wildflowers.  Early bloom, mid-season bloom and late bloom flowers will support them throughout the season.  The Maple Community Garden website has a list of bee-friendly plants by season at

http://maplecommunitygarden.ca/projects/beekeeping/

• Use native plants or heirloom varieties
• Bright flowers are preferred (honeybees have very good color vision): blue, purple, violet, white and yellow.
• Plant flowers of a single species in clumps about four feet in diameter instead of in scatterings so bees are more likely to find them.
• Plant a variety of flower shapes as this will benefit a diversity of bees.
• An interesting plant to consider for your bee friendly environment is Himalayan Honeysuckle. It doesn’t need full sunand has some stage of a flower over almost the entire year, so a constant rotation of pollinators go to it.

Habitat (Honeybees and Bumblebees)

Honeybees and bumblebees, being social, require a large productive area to support the colony.  Honeybee presence may be indicated by a visible hive, while bumblebee presence may be undetectable as they nest underground or in clumps of vegetation.  If you own a large property, or know others that do, such as farmers, encourage owners to leave the edges of fields, lawns or other productive areas empty, wild and undisturbed.  This will allow wildflowers to grow in abundance and nests to remain intact year after year.

Habitat (Mason and other solitary bees)

If you would like to experiment with supporting a local solitary bee population, and are not up for building a bee house yourself, you can buy a bee house from a supplier such as Wild Birds Unlimited on West Broadway. They sell manufactured bee houses and nests, as well as bee cocoons. You can also check with your local garden center.  Look for these products in December/January prior to the start of the season.  Mason bees are active in the spring [March-June], so your bee house/habitat needs to be in place by February-March.  Fall and winter management includes cleaning cocoons and cleaning the nests.  Mason bee cocoons are vulnerable to predators and parasites and must be stored correctly over the winter as well.

Before purchasing or making a homemade bee habitat, please review the sites below for general information on bees and also for additional information on creating and maintaining a successful solitary bee habitat.

Further Information:

The City of Vancouver http://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/support-bees-and-butterflies.aspx

The David Suzuki Foundation http://www.davidsuzuki.org/what-you-can-do/food-and-our-planet/create-a-bee-friendly-garden/

West Coast Seeds https://www.westcoastseeds.com/articles-instructions/product-instructions/keeping-mason-bees/

Dr. Margriet Dogterom “Pollination with Mason Bees: A Gardener’s Guide to Managing Bees for Fruit Production”   [available at Indigo, Vancouver Public Library, or online]

Also by this author, Build A Bee Box:

http://www.canadiangardening.com/how-to/wildlife/build-a-bee-box/a/21201

 

1. Watering is key to growing healthy plants and veggies in this heat!  Try to water in the mornings when it is cooler, slowly and deeply, which will cut down on need for watering frequently. Don’t water leaves of tomatoes or roses, always water these plants from the bottom close to the trunk.
2. Add Mulch of straw or compost to the garden to conserve water.
3. Harvest fruit and veggies frequently and pull weeds before they go to seed. Deadhead spent flowers, cutting close to the base of the stalk.
4. Use bait to discourage slugs, especially on new plants. Safer’s has an organic bait now.
5. Plant successive crops for continual harvest like peas, radish, carrots and beans.
6. Sow seeds of cool season crops by mid-late July and keep watered. Some examples could be: lettuce, spinach and arugula.
7. Fertilize June-bearing strawberry plants after you harvest, ever-bearing types should be fertilized halfway through the season. Half strength fish fertilizer is a good choice.
8. Irises can be divided now.  Although daffodils and tulips have bulbs, irises have fleshy rhizomes. Just dig up the whole clump, break the rhizomes apart, trim the roots to about 4″, cut the leaves to a fan shape about 6” on top to make them easier to work with, and then replant in groups of three or more with the fleshy rhizome exposed to the light and roots below in the soil. Irises need the rhizome exposed to capture sunlight, like in the photo below:

Excerpt from CP website:

“Arbutus Corridor upgrades, Vancouver

Update: February 6, 2015-  On January 20, 2015, a judgment of the BC Supreme Court dismissed the city’s application to prevent CP from operating along the Arbutus corridor and continuing its work. After taking time to evaluate the court’s decision, CP is resuming steps for reactivating the corridor for rail operations.

Letters informing residents that CP will resume brush cutting and removal of encroachments on February 10, 2015 should arrive in mailboxes as early as February 6, 2015.”

Scroll down to the section on British Columbia, which also includes a link to the CP Letter To Residents being distributed: 

http://www.cpr.ca/en/community/living-near-the-railway/rail-projects-near-you

 

As of December 17, 2014 the BC Supreme Court hearing continues for the City of Vancouver’s civil claim with CP Rail.  The judge is expected to give his ruling in the case at a later date.

The Province:  December 17, 2014 

http://www.theprovince.com/lawyers+rail+cars+Arbutus+corridor+pose+major+safety+risks/10660623/story.html

The Province:  December 10, 2014

http://www.theprovince.com/City+seeks+block+storing+rail+cars+Arbutus+corridor/10454140/story.html

The City of Vancouver filed a notice of civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court today in a direct constitutional challenge to Canadian Pacific’s actions to clear its property along Arbutus Corridor.  See more at:

http://www.vancourier.com/news/city-of-vancouver-takes-cp-to-court-1.1413568#sthash.uinGNiIT.dpuf

The August 2014 Notice To Residents from CPR indicates that in addition to returning the rail line to operating standards, CP will also be spraying herbicides to ‘prevent the re-growth of stubborn weeds on our right of way’ in accordance with their Integrated Vegetation Management Plan 2010.  Maple Community Garden Executive does not have any further detail regarding the proposed use of herbicides by CPR.

Key links to other info on the CPR site:

Arbutus Corridor Overview Map [formal drawings, Maple Garden page 15-17] 

CPR Site Survey [details of Maple Garden ‘encroachment’, page 6]

Arbutus Corridor upgrades [general info, with links to all CPR Notices To Residents]

A reminder that CPR has asked everyone to “…please direct any questions about CP’s activity in your community to our Community Connect line at community_connect@cpr.ca  or 1 800/766-7912.  Questions regarding the future use of this land as it pertains to the Arbutus Corridor Official Development Plan can be directed to the City of Vancouver.”

 

This is an invitation to participate in the renewal of the labyrinth area of the west gardens. The plan is to create a space that will be used for meetings and teaching. The physical work to rebuild can be counted toward your annual work parties.

The planning meeting is Monday June 9th at 7 pm in the west garden. We will look at the interaction of paths, seating, plantings and new brick or stone work in the area to renew the space.

If you would like to participate in this project please contact Gary at commonsproject@maplecommunitygarden.ca

Maple Community Garden is currently looking for a member to participate as our representative in a garden coalition working with Cypress and Pine Community Gardens to promote greenspace along the Arbutus Corridor [for further info see CP Rail Line Clearing post, May 26, 2014 below].  If you’re interested in this volunteer opportunity, please contact info@maplecommunitygarden.ca for details. Please include “Garden Coalition” in the Subject line.