Community Garden: Still plenty to do in the garden

The cold has prevented everyone from working in their gardens and the Guthrie Community Garden is no exception. Almost!

We had a volunteer that came out and spread wood mulch last Friday. It was windy, cold and miserable but she still worked. That’s right, SHE! A college student doing some community service work during the Christmas break from college. Every little bit helps and her time spent in the garden was no exception. Thank you very much for your help.

Some water and melted snow have collected in the low spot along the wall and the brick pathway and it is frozen solid. It will probably be there all through the summer and into next winter. I had to walk out on the mulch to get through. As spring approaches it is time to decide on what to plant in the garden. Some newer gardeners might also decide to look into getting a new shed from websites similar to easyshed.com.au if their old shed has taken a beating by the elements over the winter.

We are going to put as many onion bulbs in the garden as possible. Last year we put about one thousand five hundred bulbs and virtually every one of them grew to maturity. This year we want to put a lot more bulbs in the ground. When you see the white, yellow and red onion bulbs in the store you can feel free to buy a bag or one of each and bring them down to the garden. We will put them in the ground and grow them. Once they are up and doing well and the soil is warm we are going to consider planting lots of watermelons and cantaloupes. We will use both seeds and plants for these and donations of each will be greatly appreciated.

We will put about seventy-five tomato plants along the wall again this year. They seemed to do well in that location last year. We have two more loads of wood mulch to spread and we should be getting some more mulched leaves to spread when it warms up a little.

There is still plenty of work to do when the weather is a little warmer and not so windy. Hopefully this year we can get the shelves built for the shed to hold things and then get rid of the pallets on the floor. Remember that it is getting close to the time that you need to make sure your power equipment is operating properly. Let it warm up and then get everything started if you left fuel in the tank. Now is the time to find the tune-up guy if you need to drain the fuel out of your carburetor. Catch him before he gets busy or you may have to wait for a month like everyone else. When it comes to garden equipment, once used, making sure that they are put away safely is important. No one wants to leave a lawnmower out in the rain to then come back and find it not working! With that being said, this then comes as no surprise to find that some people may look into shed prices, as getting a shed for their garden may be an option. The more storage, the better.

Additionally, we will be doing some serious container gardening this spring and summer and these are not your average small containers. These things will grow lots of different vegetable plants and will be great for patio type gardening. They will not be light in weight so don’t expect to be moving them but they will grow enough for your family.