Spring!

The garden's certainly starting to shape up now that it's Spring...

Our strawberries are starting to flower.

The kale & chard bed's doing nicely, too.

 We're getting visits from out local pollinators...

...and here is the newly hung sign!

One more thing: on Thursday, May 31st, we'll be holding our first annual Vancouver School Garden Picnic! It's at 3:45 right here in the garden, and all are welcome!  We'll have photos from the event up soon after.

Herb Patch + City Farmer

On Thursday, we planted some more seeds in our herb patch: cilantro and parsley.  We'll transplant the basil plants soon.

Our chives are pretty healthy as well...

As is all of our kale!

Some of us also took a tour of City Farmer, a demo garden on the corner of Maple and 6th.  I've included a link to the entire photo album below (we took quite a few photos).  We also got some great ideas for planting, composting, watering, and much more!  If you ever find yourself near the demo garden, be sure to drop by for a visit, it's highly recommended!

City Farmer album: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/117766690004523371125/albums/5734450801914943809?authkey=CKfJ-_SXtN6G9wE

New Season, New Soil

Last Thursday, the club worked to prep the garden for the Spring. Working with some brand new soil we purchased, we finally filled and evened out the remaining empty beds. We'll be planting some new plants soon!

We also re-staked the apple trees and transplanted our raspberry bushes beside a fence. We had a group of observers all the while:

Seeds!

We planted some new tomato and parsley seeds last week, and they've already germinated! They're currently sitting in a windowed room in the school, where they'll be getting plenty of sunlight during the day.

We're going to be transplanting these guys in mid-March, so stay tuned until then...

Thank you to the Kits Seed Library of Village Vancouver for supplying us with our parsley seeds and some basil seeds! Next year, we'll be sure to give some of our garden's seeds back to the Library. (You can find more information about the Seed Library and Village Vancouver here: http://www.villagevancouver.ca/group/kits-village-seed-savers-kits-seed-library)

Winter

It snowed in the garden for the first time in a long time. Here are a couple photos of the plants and snow:

A Goal

To make the Prince of Wales Community Garden a place of community, sustainability, and education.

The Year in Review

It's been a busy year for the garden...

After finishing the expansion of the garden in the spring (adding 5 beds and 8 apple trees), we had 10 volunteers who helped us get our second successful harvest! Carrots, radishes, chives, apples, kale, strawberries, and lettuce were among the edibles.

At clubs day, we got over 40 newcomers who signed up for the club. We used that help almost immediately, filling a bed with new kale seedlings and Swiss chard, and those plants continue to grow today!

We gave a very successful presentation to the Prince of Wales PAC, and received the full amount we were asking for! We used some of this money to purchase a new composter, which we put to work right away.

With that said, we still have a lot to complete in the new year.

1. The FoodCorps Grant

We are in the midst of working out an application for the FoodCorps grant from Whole Foods. If we get the grant, we'll be able to use the funds towards lots of exciting new projects.

2. The sign!

We need to get our sign up to let people know what's going on in that little field beside the school! This'll be one of our first projects of the year.

3. Benches!

We will hopefully have some benches by the tree in the new year! Here's a simple design that we're thinking of going for: http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/main/pdf/bench30.pdf

4. Drip irrigation

We are planning to have a drip irrigation system up and running for the apple trees some time in late spring. Stay tuned for details!

5. Conferences? Workshops? Others?

We're certainly open to new ideas!

See you in the new year!