Sharing Garden Update

We have much to be grateful for!

Karen and Chris unloading barrels

Karen Finley, of Alpine's Queen Bee Honey drove with Llyn down to Eugene and back and loaded twenty recycled 55 gallon barrels donated by Glory Bee Foods onto her truck and brought them back to the greenhouse. They are set up to support our potting tables and, once filled with water, will provide thermal mass--moderating the temperature of the greenhouse year round. The water-filled drums will absorb the heat from the sun, or the woodstove, during the day and release it slowly through the night.

A sample of our seed bank.

We received a seed-donation from Brigitte Goetze of Alpine. All together we had three lidded buckets full of seeds - most of which Chris saved systematically over the course of last year's harvest. We sorted through them and determined which ones we could give away and have been sharing them with other gardeners, and people growing food for those in need.

We are grateful to the Tri-County Tribune for offering to print our complete wish-list and an explanation of the "Sharing Garden's" purpose. The article has only been out two days and we've already received a donation of over 2000 "plug trays" from Frank Pitcher who grows cabbage-seed commercially. We haven't decided if we're going to cut them up with a razor knife - to be able to give away smaller amounts of starts (there are 128 holes per flat!), or if we'll plant multiple varieties of seeds on one flat to have "variety-packs" we can give away. We'll put the word out when we have seedlings available.

Bruce and Chris planting seeds

Today we got some breaks in the rain. It's amazing how fast the greenhouse heats up as as soon as the sun comes out! We all peeled down to tee-shirts though the temps were still chilly outside. Bruce Hayler showed up to give us a hand. Though he's been a gardener for many years, this will be his first experience in a greenhouse. We sifted potting soil, added some fertilizer and sifted rabbit manure and, between the three of us started seven flats of seeds. It's starting to really feel like a greenhouse!

We've received a beautiful green-painted mailbox from Renee and Johan Forrer of Monroe. We'll put that up in Monroe once the season gets going and it will be a place for plastic bags and a harvest knife for people to pick produce. Save your clean, plastic bags for us to use during harvest season!

If you need thornless ever-bearing raspberries, contact us and we'll arrange a time to show you where you can dig them up. We can supply pots if you need them for transport. Our contact info.

Here's a link to our updated wishlist. New items include: water-based exterior house paints, a wheelbarrow or garden-cart and, though we received all the plug-trays from Frank today, we still especially prize the standard "six-pack" size so let us know if you have some you don't need. Even a small amount helps.

Garden Tip: If the ground where you live is still too cold and soggy for planting peas, try this method we used last year with great success.

Another beautiful rainbow over "The Ark"