Kitsilano Community Garden

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads. (Henry David Thoreau)

Installing the new garden hose reel posts - thanks guys!

Well. What a wonderful day in the garden for our June work party. Suffice to say beautification was the focus as well as practical tasks accomplished to improve our community garden experience and visual enjoyment. New posts were installed to mount hose reels, weeding, weeding, weeding and dare I mention again weeding? The compost was managed, the large branches from the hazelnut tree were chipped, the front boulevard was cleaned up as well as the herb garden... the front pathway was groomed and 'mossified as was the central garden pathway... the west side garden was groomed and a bunch of other stuff. Here are a few shots from the day.

Perennial weeding. Get the Goutweed!

Scabiosa & bee

Great job on the back west side garden! Looks beautiful

New garden map - laminated! thanks Graham

And it begins… 2015 season in Kits Garden

The official 2015 season has started in our beautiful Kitsilano Community Garden - although the garden is never truly dormant in our lotus land environment. We on the west coast have been accused by the rest of the suckers… uh oops I mean people in the rest of the country of gloating about our weather here, but we can hardly be blamed can we?! We had a beautiful day for our first work party with the delivery of our Zero Waste compost. Besides the distribution of the compost to everyone's plots and common areas, a ton of work was done to get the garden in shape. Everyone has high hopes for the magic of the compost to add complexity and nutrients to our soil for the best growing season evah! A few images from the day.

Zero Waste Compost -steaming goodness for the garden

Some of the gang

must… get… bins… separated.

One volunteer at a time please!

November November the last of November

aak, it's almost December so thought it was nigh on time for a quick post of some recent images from the garden in it's resting state... although the visits to our beautiful garden are few during this time of year... there is always always something beautiful to behold. A quick visit last week gave a gift of leaves to blanket the Hobbit Tree garden and the opportunity for a quick trimming of the Eucalyptus tree that was threatening to skyrocket if left to it's own devices! I know it's almost December but really... it's almost time for another season in the garden in our lovely west coast climate - see 'yous in February!!

Living wall construction - ready for next season

November 8th - a distant memory now!

All greens have gone to ground... uh... except for the indestructible kale and oregano.

Cosy in the garden mid-November 2014

Last real bouquet... November 8th... roses... dahlias...

sweet little delphinium...cosmos... sigh

Cauliflower :) - early November tree stump - harmless but kind of gross fungi that eventually turned black.
It's because we had such a warm fall... then all the rain!

Here it is in a later stage...

Late November leaves - a blanket for the Hobbit Tree

Frost... November 16th

The weather gods & goddesses were with us...

The weather gods and goddesses were with us for the last work party of the 2014 season. You could not have asked for a better situation - tons of rain the night before and then a gorgeous day to weed, restructure, organize and generally prep for the upcoming winter… then rain again on Monday to settle everything in again Still of course lots of beauty and interest to behold in the garden now and to come over the cooler months but it's good to start putting everything to bed for the winter and do some restructuring, trimming and dividing. A few of the members worked on the new west coast design shed build at the back of the garden that will house the chipper and provide a shelter for sundry items. Thanks everyone for all the attention to our garden.

A few images from the day…

The last days of summer

It's still lovely and warm when the sun is out and this is the time of year when thoughts of next year's season come into your mind. Weeding, trimming and moving things around is the perfect thing to do right now… along with harvesting the hold outs in your garden. There are always the farmer's markets for those of us who aren't diligent about succession planting :) I recommend the UBC Farmers market.

Salvia - great plant I picked up at Thimble Farms on Salt Spring Island earlier in the summer

A great new discovery up the Sunshine Coast is a nursery just off the highway near Robert's Creek called Jardin de Flores - Suzanne is passionate about plants and it shows. A lovely selection of the most marvellously tended plants I have seen in a long time. I picked up some specimens for our garden… Cistus 'Mickie' which is a variegated evergreen that gets white flowers in May and June - it's sometimes called a rock rose; Jasminum x stephanense evergreen vine that has downy green leaflets and clusters of sweetly scented, soft pink flowers in the summer that I planted by the apple tree behind the Florida Patio…; Toad Lily tricyrtis hirta which is completely exotic - it has orchid like lavender flowers and likes the shade so I put it in the shady part of the hobbit tree; blue knoll bluebird caryopteris x clandonensis that has silvery green foliage and bright blue flowers in mid summer and should attract butterflies. Oh ya, and a Rose of Sharon too (Hibiscis) which I have been wanting to get into the garden for a while but they are so expensive! I found a smaller one at Jardin for a very reasonable price so I couldn't resist. I'm hoping for a great display next season once all these plants settle in over the winter.

Just enough room for little Biscuit in the car!

Garden.Potato.Porn and other Musings

Uh… got your attention? Yes, although we are a modest bunch of organic gardeners, we also step into our naughty roles every once in a while - in a purely wholesome and healthy sort of way. One of Wednesday night's work party tasks was to dig deep for those lovely dirty little gems laying in wait… yes… potatoes!

Potato Babes!

The weather was fine and although it was a relatively small turn out we beautified our garden space like nobody's business. Our other tasks included tidy up/weeding westside common area..weeding and cutting old raspberry canes and tying up new canes..edging part of back garden..compost maintenance..propagation of moss in front entrance..weeding front boulevard..deep watering..cleanup of Florida Patio..beautify shady bench area..creation of stone pond..cleanup of back of shed..herb garden spruce up..etc