Looking Good!

It feels like summer is finally here, and everything is looking great in the Park Place garden. The gophers are finally under control, most people have things planted, and now it's a matter of watering, feeding, mulching and waiting.

We had a youth group from San Diego come out last week to help mulch the cabbage and tomatoes for the Park Place and food bank plots, as well as stake the tomatoes. They're newbies in the gardening realm, but did fine. I was grateful for the help since it's been a challenge keeping up with watering and other duties.

It's very interesting to see everyone's gardening style. I keep saying I'm going to write an article on how gardens and gardeners' personalities coordinate. Some people are extremely neat and tidy. Everything is organized and gorgeous. Others (me) are hooshels - things are planted, but it's not necessarily pretty. I love walking through and seeing how everyone is doing their own thing. It's a community garden with lots of individuality!

We're stilll looking for volunteers to help water and harvest for the food banks when the time comes so email us at rivercityharvest@yahoo.com if you're interested.

Extraordinary Generosity!

Monday I received a call from Carol Lamphier at Hillside Gardens (http://www.hillsidegardens.biz/) to let me know she had some extra plants she wanted to donate to the community gardens. I thought it might be a couple of flats, which was thrilling enough to me, so imagine my delight when over half the bed of my truck was filled with tomatoes, cabbage, Romaine lettuce and parsley! Such a wonderful gift! She had the tomatoes soaking in water to keep them hydrated, and I kept my speeds below 60mph so everything transported without a problem.

Last night I took a few hours planting them in the RCH plots, as well as the one for the Park Place residents. There are a lot of the special grape tomatoes that are perfect for snacking. I think they'll be ideal for seniors' lunches. The 'Stonehedge' variety of cabbage is a solid standby, so we should have plenty of heads to give to the food bank and any charitable organization who has a need for a lot of slaw! I planted the 28 Romaine plants near the squash given to us. This way they'll be long gone by the time the squash overtake their area, but at least something is growing in the now empty space.