Update 11-11

Well what a nice wrap up to the year. Just about one year ago today I talked to Dale on the phone and he said it was okay to plant a garden in the empty lot. Shortly after, Tish and I met to begin to hatch a plan. And last night the city recognized us with a civic award from the beautification committee. It was a fun night and we received a nice plaque. Maybe when we build our little shed we can put the plaque inside it! In the meantime I'll pass it around.

Wednesday night was a fun potluck night hosted by Rob and Jan. Next month it will be at Mark and Diana's house Wednesday December 2nd. Mark you calendar now - you may not get another reminder. In fact , if you haven't already, just mark every first Wednesday of the month for our potluck. (Everyone still wants to have our traditional holiday party or cookie exchange or whatever it is we do for Christmas, so whoever was thinking of doing that - it is still a go! - I guess we like each other! )

Clem and I picked up a couple of bails of hay from the park last night after the beautification event. There are a few more down there (in the parking lot where the leaves and stuff are). If someone can grab them that would be great. Also once again this is the time of year people put them out in the trash and we should pick them up! It will save us hours of weeding in the spring if we have lots of hay to use as mulch so please be on the look out for these and store them in the garden! Right now is our little window of opportunity for these.

And I have noticed the leaves on the beds in the garden look very packed down already. When you rake your leaves if you could please take them down to the garden and dump them on the beds it will help them have a nice warm winter with a heavy blanket.

Betsy Breckels

P.S. If you want a copy of the Pointes of Horticulture that was done about our garden, drop a blank DVD off to Rob and Jan and they will make you a copy.

November 2nd update

Pick brussel sprout whenever you want them.

If you see haystacks put out for garbage - please grab them --- we can definitely use them for mulch for next year!!! We won't have to water or weed as much if we mulch --- and now is the time we will see those haystacks put out in the trash.

This Wednesday is our potluck, 6:00 at Jan and Rob's. See you there! ( no pesky meetings to get in the way of our enjoyment!!!! )

We covered the beds with leaves on Sunday. We can still add more if anyone wants to drag them over there when you are out raking ---- just pile 'em on - the more the better.

Betsy Breckels

Kudos everyone!

Hi All

I am very pleased to announce that we will be receiving a beautification award from the city of Grosse Pointe Park, it is a civic award.

"Your award is in recognition of the Grayton Garden Project. Hopefully, your project will become a prototype for similar area gardens."

Apparently the city has gotten a lot of questions about starting a community garden in the Park and they haven't been able to give them much direction. I agreed to help them with a seminar for others who want to start similar gardens.

There is an "Awards Night" that a limited number of us will be able to attend. While I would love it if every person involved in the garden could come, we had to go with those who put in some serious Sunday time. But it truly has been a project of the whole block and I am really pleased how everyone jumped right on board. I have really enjoyed getting to know all of my neighbors!

Speaking of the garden, there is STILL Arugula, lettuce, peas, lima beans, green beans, and beets in the garden............please help yourself!!!!!

Remember November 1st is the last day in the garden and no Sundays before then. November 4th is the first INDOOR potluck. 6:00 still okay with everyone? It will be at Jan and Rob's house. Kids, as always, are welcome.

Betsy Breckels

Letitia's Update

We harvested what we could today and removed a lot of the plants. Please continue to pick stuff as it is ready - kale, lettuce, green beans, Brussels sprouts, beets, radishes, chard, lima beans, and parsley. There is not much to do for the next few weeks so we will NOT work the next two Sundays.

Our next work day will be November 1. We will put the garden to bed for the winter that day - harvest and remove plants, amend the soil with a cover crop or compost, and put leaves on top of the beds.

Please save your leaves!! You can bring them to the garden between now and November 1 or save them in your yard.

Potluck re-cap

Hi all,

It was an especially delicious potluck last night!!!! Next month , (the first Wednesday of November, always the first Wednesday of the month - put it on your recurring dates) the potluck will move indoors to Jan and Rob's house. As always kids are welcome, and she has plenty of toys!

There will be no more meetings at potlucks!!!! Yay!!!!! Do we want food related educational food movies? (King Corn, Food Inc., Future of Food come to mind) Or do we just want to hang out?

We have a steering committe: Beth, Mark, Vikte, Jan, Tish, Meg, and myself. We will begin meeting in November. We will be the deciders! Of course we will take everyone's (who is truly involved in the garden) opinion into account and come up with what we think is feasable and what pleases most people.

We generally decided that jobs would be more spread out this year, and it would be a tighter group. I would like to include any family (on any block!) that wants to be involved and can commit to the work , limiting the number to 10 families. But I guess we didn't really decide this yet.

We all feel that any neighbor who wants to be involved, but cannot be involved in a regular way should feel free to stop by whenever they feel like it, help pull weeds, plant or water, take a cucumber or two, come to the potlucks, in general feel welcomed! This is what a community garden is all about!

So we won't bore you with details anymore. If you feel strongly about bed expansion/no bed expansion, what should be planted/not planted, what the membership requirements should be and who should be welcomed, talk to one of the committee members and we will take your view into account.

See you Sunday!


Betsy

PS Jennifer Meldrum from the city might buy the corn stalks from us. If she doesn't but them, she offered us a free booth at the market. Anida expressed an interest in manning the booth. I would be interested too. It could be good "retail experience" for the kids. Even if we don't do it this month, we might do it next year - we could make our garden self sufficient - which really appeals to m

Garden Update/Potluck Reminder

Hi guys

We had a pretty easy day in the garden today. Lots of harvesting: basil, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, lettuce, arugula, beets, cabbage, kale, ...... yum.

We put leaves over the garlic beds.

We pulled some of the plants that we deemed done.

*****As you have leaves please bring them right over and pile them on any empty bed!!!!******* we can pile them very high.

We emptied the rain barrels so they wouldn't freeze.

We had a lot of chit chat.

We trimmed off the tops of the brussel sprout plants in hopes that they would actually produce some brussel sprouts.

We tasted a paw paw that Clem and I foraged.


Remember Potluck is Wednesday! At the Garden . 6:00 pm. If you've brought a table in the past please bring one again. Bring your own chair, a dish to pass, and whatever beverage you desire. I will bring forks, Tish can you bring plates? I will bring napkins.

Bring your ideas for the garden layout for next year, and how you think the group should be organized for next year. We will talk about that and hopefully form a "steering committee" (I guess that 's what it's called) to make decisions.

If you want to be on the committee you need to show up for this meeting and you need to have been fairly involved in the garden this year (have showed up Most Sundays).


Betsy Breckels

Words of Wisdom From Betsy

Hi all

At our potluck this Wednesday we will have a meeting. Really, this time we will. Jan is going to bring a long table and we will talk and eat at the same time.

We need to make some decisions about how we want to lay out the garden next year (if we even want to change it at all) so that we can plant garlic - which needs to be planted now.

So here are some proposed topics:

Reflections on this year

layout for next year

Requirements for Membership for next year

Treasury Report

Scavenge List

(Other than the garlic - I think we can hold off on deciding what to plant next year - though we can definitely throw around thoughts and ideas)

If you can't be there and have ideas you want heard, feel free to email me


Betsy

ps don't forget to come out in the morning Sept. 2nd for our 15 minutes of fame - 9 am

Just sayin'

Sorry guys. We won't be down in the garden helping out on Sunday. So if someone else can cut the grass, that would be great.
We're moving two kids into their digs at college tomorrow. Pray for rainy nights and sunny days. Everything looks fantastic down there! Grayton rocks!

Pick guys!

Hey everyone. Be sure to head down to the garden and pick up some dinner. Especially the beans. If we don't pick the vines clean, they'll start going to seed and quit producing. Be sure to grab a milk crate and pick the hard to reach beans.

Trash picking

Be on the look out for:

More Barrels! (we need at least 4 more - maybe more if we can fit them)

Other kind of Barrels for potato planting

Flexible downspout thingies

Any lightweight tubing to make more movable trellises with

string

doors and windows that we can make cold frames with.

It would be nice if we could work on some of these things this September and October. As far as the rainbarrels go, we really need more now. Cold frames or hoop houses would be nice to have set up in September so we can have lettuce in October, November, March and April!.

Betsy Breckels
betsybreckels@gmail.com

The Return of the Pot Luck

Even though the Garden Tour falls on the first Wednesday, several people expressed interest in having our pot luck dinner. So we're rescheduling it for Wednesday the 12th. Bring a dish to pass and see you there around 6 p.m.

Update from Letitia

Sunday we took out the peas, planted lettuce, beets and pickling cucumbers. The cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins and muskmelons have mold, so Vikte did some research and found three non-toxic sprays (vinegar, hydrogen peroxide and borax mixed with water) to combat the mold. We tested all three.

There are lots of seedlings in the garden, so be careful when weeding. If there is any doubt if it's a weed or a seedling, let's leave it in the ground.

We need signs for the beet and lettuce seedlings that were planted Sunday.

Garden Captain
Or boss or whatever you want to call it. Betsy suggested that we take turns leading in the garden each week. The person who is responsible for each week needs to make a to-do list prior to when we start Sunday morning and then bring the list to the garden on Sunday. The August schedule is as follows.
Ausust 2: Mark Domin
August 9: Meg
August 16: Suzanne
August 23: Vikte

Watering
We have had more cool temps and more cloudy days this summer than usual. We discussed the mold on Sunday and decided that a likely suspect is excess moisture comibined with lack of sun/heat. We also discussed watering and came up with some suggestions.
Seedlings need to be watered every day, unless it rains enough to water them.
Established plants may not need to be watered every day when we have cooler temps and clouds.
Established plants, when the weather is cooler, do better with a deep watering every couple of days than with shallow waterings daily.
Some notes on what was watered when may help waterers. Suzanne & Diana provided a waterproof container, notebook and pens. Waterers can write down what they watered to help subsequent waterers decide if the established plants should be watered.
Don't be shy - stick your finger into the soil to check the moisture if you are not sure if plants need more water.
The garden should be watered as early in the day as possible, particularily given the recent weather. That being said, everyone understands that waterers may not be able to get to the garden until late in the day.
We will also list when we planted seeds and where in the notebook so that waterers know where seedlings are (might help with accidental weeding of seedlings also).

Mold Spray
Here is a list of which plants received which remedy for mold so that we can watch to see what works. (Vikte - if I am wrong about any of these, please update.)
Right half of zucchinis (as you are facing Vikte's house) were sprayed with peroxide.
Left half of zucchinis were sprayed with vinegar.
Pumpkins and cukes were sprayed with borax & water mix (1 cup Borax to 1 gallon of water).
Melons with the peas and the new cucumbers were sprayed with vinegar.

Raspberries
We discussed planting raspberries on the hill and determined the following. Vikte said that she will be raspberry captain.
We would like to plant 3 horizontal rows of raspberries on the hill (from the top down to the Mack side).
The first step is to till the hill.
We should not need to buy any raspberry plants. We can transplant from Vikte's yard.
We need to decide if we will amend the soil. Raspberries grow in several yards on the block and a couple of people mentioned that they seem to do well in a variety of soil conditions. We discussed leaving the soil as is and just planting or amending the soil but we did not reach a decision.
Rob, can we use your till for the hill sometime in August?

Garden Tours

Hi All,

Two weeks from today is the time we would normally have our community potluck. But on August 5th the Greening of Detroit and the Detroit Agricultural Network hold their annual urban garden tour! The plan is for our group to have a field trip! We will get a chance to see many other community gardens as well as some large backyard gardens.

We should each sign up individually for it (sign up is a must - it sells out). There are 4 tours to choose from, one of which is a bicycle tour. Clem and I did the bicycle tour last year which was very good. I think it would be fun if we all did the same tour and I'm thinking we should do the Eastside tour - since we are eastsiders!

All tours leave from the Catherine Ferguson Academy (in itself a wonderful thing to see) on the near west side at 6:00 sharp. There is a meal at Catherine Ferguson after the tours. (Registration begins at 5:00 - last year we got there a few minutes before 6:00 and we were okay)

I realize some people may want to go right from work, but for those of us who are starting off from Grayton it would be good to carpool.

I'm attaching a link to a link (DAN and The Greening Websites are hard to navigate) that will let you sign up for the tour. Let me know what your plans are. It would be good if we can all get on the same bus. As always, kids are welcome.

http://blog.eatlocalfood.com/2009/07/2009-urban-garden-tour-is-wednesday.html


Betsy Breckels

Pick, Pick, Pick!

Hey guys. Just a heads up--come down and start picking the vegetables. And don't be shy and just pick a couple beans here and there. Take enough for a meal for your family. The more you pick, the more the plants produce. Right now the zucchini, beans, and cucumbers are producing like crazy. We're giving the peas another week or so before we yank the plants. It's starting to be payoff time, so eat well and enjoy!

And thanks everyone who worked today. I think we got quite a bit done. Once again, you guys rock!

This just in!

We're getting a bunch of fall vegetables from Earthworks. So we need to expand the beds a bit. We're planning on meeting down at the garden around 8 A.M. on Thursday morning to expand the beds and plant. If you can make it, that would be wonderful. Don't feel obligated.

Mark

Watering

For these hot dry months Vikte and I decided you all could use our hoses for watering. We guesstimated it would cost about $20.00 for the 2 months and we'll deduct that from the kitty. (It turns out a meter would cost about $100.00 - not really worth it.)

So if the rain barrels are empty hook up the hoses to Vikte's or my or both spigots.

Be sure to give everything a good soaking now that we are not getting much rain.

Also be sure to pick zuchinni, cucumbers , beans , Basil and parsley often.

Betsy

Let it rain! In the mean time...

Hello Trusty Waterers.

Notice that there are new seedlings that need to be generously watered. They are in the former beet bed and the former potato bed. They are marked (not prominently) chard, beets, lima beans and cilantro.

Okay I'll go back to my rain dance now.


Betsy

Reacp

Notes from Betsy:

Hi all,

Steve was a very informative speaker last night! With taking his advice we can extend our growing season well into October! He asked at the end if he could join us on Sundays, I took a poll of most of the core members and a majority is all for it. Frankly we need his expertise. I plan to call him this afternoon and let him know that we'd be honored to have him take part in our group.

I plan to order seeds today as well. We will need lettuce, radish, beets, carrots (I won't order the short stubby kind everyone was dissin' last night). I think I got all the seed packets he gave us but if some one has more please let me know. If you're yearning for a particular crop let me know. Lisa from Earthworks said she would get us a distribution of transplants including kolrabi, cabbage, kale, among other things.

Already I think we've had a great bounty. Be sure to go down and pick dill, parsley and Basil whenever you need it. Zuchinni and cukes are on the way. Get your zuchini recipes out! We should have more potatoes (the kids should definitely take part in this harvest!) this week but next year we can definitely plant more --- maybe we can use the garbage can method and it won't take up any garden space but will give us lots of yield. (not for fingerlings though from what I understand.)

A few weeks ago on Sunday we all went around the garden and figured out together what needed to be done, made a list, and then went right through the list. I think that is a good model. I plan to do that again this week and every week so please be ready to do this.

Both of our speakers mentioned books. Patrick had suggested an organic gardening book by Elliot Coleman. I have not read it but I did go to the workshop which was very interesting.

Steve mentioned Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Polan. (I'll throw in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver). If you're interested in reading Omnivore's Dilemma, both Tish and I have copies we would be happy to lend to you. If you want the reader's digest version go see Food Inc. at the Main theatre.

Also it is time to cough up another $10. The group owes me $24.00 for rain barrel faucets and plants. plus I'll be buying seeds this week. Please drop an envelope in our mailbox. So far I'm very impressed with how cheaply we've done this whole thing. Impressed in general with how when we work together we pulled off this amazing bountiful beautiful garden.

Betsy Breckels
betsybreckels@gmail.com

Potluck Redux

Don't forget, we're having our next potluck on Wednesday July 1, at 6 p.m. Bring a dish to share, a chair to sit on, and a table if you have one. I'm planning on grilling a bunch of chicken--so it'll be first come, first served. Hopefully there will be enough for everyone. We'll also be having a guest speaker. See ya there!

Please be seated

Thanks to Mike Novak, we now have a bench in our garden. Mike trash picked it, cleaned it up, and put in in our plot. Also, peas, lettuce, and radishes are ready for picking. So come on down and do some shopping for dinner!

Peas, Potluck, and more!

Peas:

Last night Clem picked a few peas and we threw them in with our stir fry - they were delicious!

We should be picking them daily at this point, so go down right before dinner and see what you can find. They are best eaten WITHIN AN HOUR of picking!!!!! If you go down and find an overabundance please let your neighbors know to go down and start picking - they will lose their sweetness if they linger too long on the vine. If we end up with more than we can eat (unlikely) they should be frozen immediately to retain their sweetness.

Look toward the bottom of the plants for the more mature peas and remember there are peas on both sides of the trellis.


July Potluck:

Potluck is two weeks from tomorrow - Wednesday July 1st. Tentative speaker is Steve, the famous Charlevoix easement gardner. He has decades of organic farming/gardening experience and will talk to us about succession gardening - which it will be just about time to do. Bring what you brought last time in terms of set up - it seemed to work out fine - we'll bring a few extra folding chairs.

Raspberries/Roses:

We still need a raspberry/Rose captain. They require certain planting, spacing, trellising and pruning care that someone needs to be on top of. I'm confident we can do it - and there's nothing better than raspberries straight from the garden - we just don't want to do it haphazardly and have it turn into a raspberry nightmare. We can certainly wait til spring (and that's probably the best time) to do this but we do have offers of plants from Vikte and Steve now (I don't know how many - we will want to plant enough that everyone will get a good amount)


Betsy Breckels
betsybreckels@gmail.com

June 15 Update from Beth

Hi Everybody
Holy Moly what a beautiful weekend! I could take 51 more of those. We had a great day in the garden Sunday so I guess I am here with your weekend update.

We planted two varieties of Pumpkins along the Mack edge of the corn row: large jack o'lantern type and smaller baking pumpkins. I'm already dreaming of pies and bread! We're hoping to have these viney plants grow up the hillside along the side toward Mack. Harvest will actually be closer to August but mad scientist Meg has some ideas about developing a few super size pumpkins that may delay a while longer. She said something about waiting for the great pumpkin with Linus.

Yikes! Enough about Fall!

We harvested lettuce, picked a few peas and some scallions, thinned the carrots, beets, radishes, and corn. If you stop by during the week feel free to hunt up some pea pods or onions. If you see some leafy lettuce begging for your dinner or sandwich you can snip it at the base and it will grow back in a week or two. Beets are coming along nicely and are good for both the bulb and the greens. Mark has a great sounding recipe where you use it a lot like spinach. If you ever have an ingredient that you want a recipe for also check www.allrecipes.com and use the ingredient search tab. I love that site. Is distribution working well for folks? We can evolve this with discussion so don't be shy about chiming in.

More maintenance: Domins mowed, many weeded, Parents hooked up a new rain barrel and kiddoes pruned bugs off of plants (so brave!), Clem & Rob turned and sifted the compost and most notably set up a system for the compost. COMPOST ORGANIZATION: Kitchen scraps (no meat) should be put in the left hand bin. Grass clippings can be put in the right hand bin. We can use any untreated grass clippings for mulch, which will allow us to water and weed less. Guru weeder Suzanne is among many who will appreciate that :)

On tap for this week is a spigot for the new rainbarell (pun intended) and of course watering per volunteer schedule. It really looks beautiful and has been so much fun. Thanks to everybody for all the hard work!

Update from Betsy

Okay, now we have everyone's email address!

Things are looking great in the garden! Lettuce was thinned and replanted, Arugula was harvested, corn was planted, tomatoes that didn't make it got replaced, signs were finished, grass was cut, the herb bed was weeded and trellis work was finished. Two new rain barrels were brought over and Joe Parent plans to hook them up this week.

And we had fun.

We decided to plant raspberries and roses on the outside slope of the garden. Would someone like to volunteer to be in charge of this project? We plan to do it this Sunday. We will be using Vikte's volunteer raspberries and some found roses.

We also decided to have a potluck the first Wednesday of every month. We will try to have a speaker. The first Wednesday of August is the Urban garden tour that we talked about going to as a group.

We also talked about keeping notes on things that we would like to do or grow differently next year so we can talk about them over the winter.

We talked about distribution but didn't really come to any conclusions. When there are things that need to be harvested every day we will put it on the blog so people will know to go and pick. (http://www.graytongarden.blogspot.com/) The peas will pop up in about a week and will need to be harvested daily.

We decided to have short meetings on work days when needed. More formal decision making was discussed and rejected. I requested that everyone say their "vote" without others talking and we would come to consensus on things and that would be the decision. This sort of worked but their was still a lot of talking at once.

Meg mentioned that Peggy suggested the rain barrel area be cleaned up. If she or anyone else would like to be in charge of that this Sunday, just show up.

I have information on the workshop that Patrick talked about at our potluck on Wednesday. There are other ongoing workshops in the area we could be going to if there is an interest. Just pop me an email if you want more info.

I will try to do an update like this after each work day if you all think it is helpful. See ya Sunday.


Betsy Breckels
betsybreckels@sbcglobal.net

Success!

Great turnout last night for our first potluck dinner. The lecture was excellent as well as all the food everybody brought and shared. In fact, it was so enjoyable, we're planning on doing it every first Wednesday of the month until it gets too chilly. So plan on meeting at the end of the block once a month. We'll send out reminders as we get closer to the dates.

Dinner is Served

Just another reminder, this Wednesday we'll be having a potluck dinner down in the garden patch. So bring a dish to pass, chairs, and beverages. We plan on gathering around 6:00. See ya there!

A Note From Betsy

Wednesday June 3rd we will have a potluck in the garden at 6:00. Lisa or Patrick from Earthworks will come and look at our progress, give us suggestions, and perhaps give a little talk. After that if there is time we will have a little informal garden meeting.

Please let me know if you can make it or not ASAP. I hate to have the Earthworks folks come if there are not enough people in attendance.

Betsy Breckels
betsybreckels@sbcglobal.net

P.S. Also, we need to set up a watering schedule.

I was thinking folks could pick a day to water and it would be their responsibility to water that day unless it rains. (bring a watering can with you) (or a hose I guess - maybe a hose would work)

I am missing Peggy, Luan and Anida, Deet and Heidi and the Parent's email ----- so if someone could let them know and see if they'd like to pick a day too --- it might be a good thing for people who haven't been able to make the work days

Divide and Conquer!

Free perennials! That's right. I'm beginning to divide my perennials, so whoever wants some, come and get 'em. I've got several varieties I'm dividing. Black-Eyed Susans, Missouri Evening Primrose, Mallow, and more. First come, first served. They've been proven winners in our neighborhood--so they come with a guarantee. If they die, you can come and get more next year. How are you gonna beat an offer like that?

Reminder

We're continuing to make excellent progress in the garden. Remember, the schedule is Sunday from 11-1 and Wednesday from 6-8. You don't need to work both days but try to make one of them if you can. The Wednesday time slot is for those folks who can't make Sundays. See you down the street!

We're On Our Way!

As you probably know by now, the beds have been tilled and some of the early seeds are in the ground. We've also started construction on the arches for the vine plants. Thanks to everyone for putting in the hard work. At the bottom of the blog you'll see a few pics of our progress. Remember , gardening hours are Sunday from 11-1 and Wednesday from 6-8. Feel free to leave comments.

The Big Dig

Here's a report from Betsy:

We dug up the garden this past Sunday! The soil is beautiful. Compost will appear this week and we will start planting next Sunday April 19th. Bring your shovel and garden rake if you have one. Maybe the kids would like to bring their dump trucks to help move compost. Heidi and Deet will be picking up the compost.

We will plant lettuce, peas, potatoes, radishes, carrots, cabbage, brussel sprouts, beets, and broccoli. If you have any of those plants started please bring them to the garden on Sunday. Also, any plants that are getting planted on Sunday should be "hardened off" or taken outside for several hours for a few days before Sunday.

We still have money in treasury but if you haven't coughed up your $10.00 please bring it by.

Our next big decision will be water - Be on the look out for a free food grade 40-50 gallon barrel that we could make into a rain barrel. We may have to buy one - Eric has some great ideas. We'd like to do it on the cheap if possible. In the meantime we'll use the Moss and Fortuna water supply (and pray for rain)! The city says there are sprinklers on that property and they will find out in a couple of weeks if they can be turned on! Wouldn't that be cool?

Also since the last post we have the following new members: Ron and Jane and Gabe, Anida and Luan, and Joe and Meghan Parent and their brood. Others have expressed interest and will probably join in.

Our first garden rule: Don't walk on the beds! Do walk on the Grass.

See you Sunday!

Here's the scoop on the dirt

Clem got the soil test back. Here's his report:

Good news from the lab. Our soil tests look good. All our nutrient levels look normal, some are even very high. The levels of organic matter are very good, too. The only down side is our pH is a bit high at 7.6. The report says, "Reported pH is higher than desired. Do not apply limestone, wood ash, or any other amendment that might raise soil pH further. To lower pH: sulfur, aluminum sulfate, iron sulfate, or acidic organic matter may be effective." The test also shows lead levels of 3 PPM; anything under 150 PPM is considered safe (a certain amount of lead occurs naturally). Cadmium is also low at .1 PPM (anything less than 1 PPM is considered safe). Anyone who wants a copy of the complete test can stop by my piano shop; I'm always here Saturdays.

A note from Clem (Mr. Treasurer)

We have had 7 people chip in their $10 to date. Our expenses have been just $13 for soil testing, leaving a current balance of $57. (The seeds were donated by Breckels Massage Therapy.) Anyone needing to be reimbursed for expenses, such as for starting plants indoors, can see me at my shop on Saturdays. Anyone who still hasn't paid the initial $10 can stop by my shop Saturdays as well. We'll likely be incurring expenses before April 19th planting for top soil and/or compost. The machine for tilling is being loaned to us by Earthworks.

All aboard!

The Grayton Garden Club met on Sunday March 8. We're moving forward. Peggy, Vikte and Mark will design a plan for the plot. Miss Dig will be contacted and so far here are the family's participating in the garden:

Fortunas
Novaks
Waitkus/Edlunds
Heidi and Deet
Domins
Forbes
Peggy O'neill
Walsh/Stahulski
Moss
We're planning on tilling the soil Easter weekend and planting shortly after that. The schedule for working the garden is Wednesday evening and Sunday morning. It will be mainly voluntary at first. See you all soon!

They're here

Betsy informed me that the seeds are here.  Tomatoes, basil and peppers are among the plants that need to be started. So give her a buzz and she can drop the packets off for anyone who'd like to start them indoors. Feel free to pick up dirt and trays, and whatever else is needed. You'll be reimbursed from the kitty. Also, don't sweat it too much--if they fail, we can always buy plants in the springtime. Think spring, everyone!

Close but no cigar, er, bricks

Well, we headed over to pick up the bricks in Roseville. Just as we got there, Mike got a call from the guy who said someone came and got them yesterday! Bummer. So if anyone has a lead on some bricks, please let us know. Meanwhile, Meg will keep scouring Craigslist--the source of all that is good and cheap/free.

The seeds are coming! The seeds are coming!

Good news! The seeds have been ordered. Meg, Beth, and Vikte expressed interest in starting them from home. We'll keep everyone posted. There is a workshop about this at Earthworks this Saturday, Feb. 14 from 1-3 p.m. It's located at the Capuchin Soup Kitchen, 1264 Meldrum. RSVP is required. Contact Kido at 313-237-8733 x 243 to reserve a spot.

The Yellow Brick Road

Meg found a cache of free bricks for our garden, on Craigslist. They're yellow which will look good next to Vikte and Phil's  home. We're going to head over there this weekend, most likely on Saturday, to pick them up. Also, Erik is working on a design for a cistern to collect rainwater. 

Can you dig it?

The Grayton Garden Group had its first meeting this afternoon. We discussed a wide variety of issues relating to the community garden we're planning at the end of the street. Here are some of the conclusions we reached:

*We're going to keep it as organic as possible

*We're going to share the produce rather than each family having its own plot

*Clem is going to have the soil tested

*We're going to share duties once or twice a week

*We're planning on putting up some kind of barrier to keep the city from mowing it

*Someone needs to contact Miss Dig to see if there are any electrical wires we need to worry about

*Meg will look into stepping stones for the kids

*We also discussed contributing compost and possibly using rain barrels for water

*Vikte and Clem said we can use their tap water when needed

*Betsy is going to order the following organic seeds: cantalope, honeydew and watermelon, bell peppers, rhubarb, several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, cukes, beets, lettuce, broccoli, potatoes and zucchini. Here's a link to the catalog Betsy's ordering from http://www.seedsavers.org

*Clem agreed to be treasurer. We're asking each family to contribute $10 to get us started.

* Clem has a friend who has a tiller and volunteered to do the tilling.

Our next meeting will be March 8th at Vikte and Phil's

If I missed anything or screwed something up, please send me an email and I'll correct it

Mark