Spring has sprung! Sharing Gardens update

Hello friends and family of the Sharing Gardens - though we've had two brief snow storms since our last update, each accumulating about 2" of the white stuff, spring is definitely in the air! Temperatures are consistently reaching the low-to mid-50's in the day and rarely dipping much below freezing at night. Soon we'll turn the water back on to the garden spigots and give our two main greenhouses a thorough soaking, including the paths, and begin the cycle again of generating compost right in our paths! (LINK-How we grow...Veganic Community-based gardening)

Before we give you our latest garden-related links, you might enjoy watching this short video of a joyous, sweet song performed by the Masaka Kids Afrikana - I Look to You-LINK. Guaranteed to make you smile!

Early spring snow, soaking the ground.

In our planting zone (Willamette Valley, Oregon, USDA zone 7b), early March is a time of completing the pruning of fruit and nut trees and the pruning and care of other perennials (before warmer temps cause the sap to begin to rise). We continue to start seedlings both on heat-mats, and directly in the raised-beds in our greenhouses.

Though this picture was taken in 2022, it shows our 48 grape vines after pruning. LINK - Great video on Pruning Table Grapes.

Here are our most recent garden-related posts:

Growing your own celery is not difficult, it just takes a lot of time to get the celery plants started! (Their roots are very slow to develop). But once they do you can have cut-and-come-again celery that extends through the main growing season, and in a greenhouse, right through to mid-winter! LINK

Growing Lettuce from seed (with general tips about starting seedlings at home).

Great news for the Monarch butterflies in southern California! After a nerve-wrackingly low winter count of nesting Monarchs in 2021 (only 2,000), they seem to be bouncing back! (250,000 in 2022 and 335,479 in 2023). Even if you live too far north to help the Monarchs (there are no consistent sightings north of Portland Oregon), planting milkweed will still benefit other pollinators. They are gorgeous, stately plants and smell divine! Here's how to grow milkweeds: LINK.

Adri and Kaylynn holding up Showy Milkweed seedlings they helped grow.

In our last newsletter, we included a link to a video about a small town in NZ that came together during the lock-downs to collectively make sure all its members stayed fed with healthy food by, among other things, working as volunteers to create and maintain garden-plots for single-parent/low-income families. Any food that the families couldn't eat themselves was harvested and prepared into healthy meals at a small cafe/community-center. This hub of community also became the site for craft-projects and the sharing of practical life-skills such as sewing and simple carpentry to create useful products sold to raise money for the project to continue. 

We've received numerous appreciative comments for sharing the link. So, in case you missed the LINK in our last newsletter, here it is again.

And, in case this newsletter was forwarded by a friend, or you've just stumbled on our website for the first time and you would like to be added to our list to receive future newsletters, send us an email at the Sharing Gardens: shareinjoy AT gmail.com "Bee" well!  Chris and Llyn

Starting Tomatoes from Seed

Transplanting tomato starts (tofu containers with holes drilled in bottom re-purposed for seed-starting).

Here in the Pacific NW, it's time to start tomatoes from seed. Most varieties need 6-8 weeks to grow large enough and sturdy enough to be transplanted into garden beds. Since our last risk of frost is around mid-May, early to mid March is the time to start the seeds. And, if you're like us and grow most/all of our tomatoes in greenhouses, they can be transplanted from their pots even sooner.

 

Tomatoes are warmth-loving plants needing to germinate at around 70-75 degrees so they need to be started indoors to thrive. We germinate ours on a heat-mat specifically designed for this purpose. Once the seeds are up, they need full sun to keep from getting pale and leggy. A greenhouse is best, as long as you don't get freezing temps or have a heat source on cold nights. If you don't have a greenhouse, a grow-light will work, or a south-facing window. Keep rotating plants so they grow straight up (not towards the window).