Harvest Goals, Pope Francis Grant, Lettuce Spacing
Upcoming work days
Monday, 6/6/22, ~6PM -start planting okra and maybe some more corn, plant the last of the beans, replant cucumbers if necessary, maintain tomato trellis, control weeds in beds and pathways, decide on harvest plan.
Change to harvest plans: Please contact Jason via phone/email/text if you are available to help on Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning. He will communicate the harvest goals on Monday evenings. This week we will harvest-mostly greens, some lettuce, turnips, beets, carrots, and maybe basil.
Tuesday evening harvest, 6/7/2022, ~6PM.
Wednesday morning harvest, 6/8/22, ~845AM.
Please communicate with Jason to be added to the St. Mary’s Community Garden Oak Ridge Google group.
Greetings St. Mary’s Gardener: Thanks for keeping up with our news. We work hard to serve our neighbors at the St. Joseph’s food pantry with freshly grown food from our garden without depleting our soil resources. Please enjoy our news and stay in touch. Please note our wish list toward the bottom of this message if you would like to donate to our cause.
Thank you to those who donated supplies and funds. I received news this week that the St. Mary’s garden will receive some funding through the Pope Francis Charitable Trust Fund. We will use the financial donations to improve our harvest handling equipment and cultivation tools. We may need to make some shed and fence repairs in the near future. Thank you!
Our last work day
It was Memorial day! We installed the tomato trellis lines. We hoed the corn bed. We planted most of the Kentucky Wonder pole snap beans. Our next jobs will be to start planting the okra in bed #5. We will finish planting all of the pole beans. Thank you to our volunteers who exemplify service by committing their Memorial “day-on” to helping feed our neighbors.
It’s hard to tell from this photo that the tomato and pepper plants are getting larger! Pretty soon I will post another virtual garden tour.
Here’s an image from February for comparison!
Harvest for the week of 6/1/2022:
Thank you for the extra help. We harvested a large amount of greens and lettuce, some carrots, beets, and turnips. We had some extra helpers, so we planted some marigolds in various places. The flowers will be exciting.
We had another record harvest for this year! I predict that the greens harvest will exceed the lettuce harvest in about 3 weeks. Remember that these are approximate dollar values. A bunch of cilantro is $2. Most of the other items are listed as $3/unit. So $60 of Butterhead lettuce is really 20 bunches of lettuce.
Three heads on the left that were planted really close together. One head on the right that was given more space to grow. But it’s so hard to space the small lettuce seeds. How can we hand the small seeds for proper spacing? We propose early “thinning” harvests for beds that receive broadcast seeding.
Wish List
-We need leaves, shredded yard trimmings, and straw and grass clippings for compost and mulch (no sticks, no herbicide)
-Work gloves for little people and children
-We are trying to build more than one Johnson-Su Bioreactor (an interesting composting method). We are looking for the supplies listed on their site: How To Build Your Own Bioreactor
Here’s the list of bioreactor supplies. I am sure that we can find most of these locally.
These supplies are for one reactor. We hope to make multiple reactors.
Landscape cloth (woven, minimum 5 oz.): Piece One: 13’ x 6’, Piece Two: 6’ x 6’, Piece Three: 6’ x 6’
One standard, sturdy shipping pallet with dimensions of approximately 40” x 48”
Wire re-mesh (6” x 6” x 10-gauge wire), used to create a 5’ x 12’ 6” supporting wire cage. This type of remesh is normally used for reinforcing concrete. Be sure to use re-mesh as horse fencing or other similar wire fence products have insufficient vertical strength to hold the cage in position as you fill it.
Four 10’ lengths of perforated, bell-end, 4” septic system drain field piping
Tie wire (normally used to tie rebar together)
-If you wish to make a financial donation please mention the St. Mary’s Community garden in the comment section of the donation page at St. Vincent de Paul Society (St. Joseph Food Pantry) .
We do not need any seedlings at this time. But we can help you find a home through our network of growers.
