May 9 - Alpine Park Clean-up Day

Alpine Garden site - before the fence.

There's going to be an Alpine Park clean-up/garden day on Saturday May 9 from 9:00 to 12:00 followed by a potluck picnic.

There are some tools already at the park but it would be helpful if you bring gloves and hand tools:

Pruners
Loppers
Rakes
Wheelbarrows/tarps
Weeding tools

Potluck item

Come for all or part of the event and get involved!

For info, email us at AlpineCoGarden@gmail.com

This is what the garden looked like a few days ago.

The Scoop on Poop

Rabbit manure is a prized fertilizer for gardeners. They "double digest" their food and because of this ultra-digestion, the fertilizer isn't as "hot" and so you can put it directly into the soil without concern for burning seedlings. Also, unlike horses, which only digest their food once, rabbits (and ruminants: cows, llamas, deer...) thoroughly digest any grass-seeds they eat making the seeds sterile so they won't sprout in your garden beds. This saves a huge amount of energy later in the season by reducing the amount of weeding necessary.

We are grateful to Julia Sunkler of "My Pharm", who has donated a load of rabbit manure to our cause. Chris and I shoveled it and unshoveled it last Friday (boy is my back getting strong!) We hope that people will support her stand at the Corvallis Farmer's Market on Weds. and Saturdays. She has meat rabbits, chicken, pork, lamb and beef (in season) and a variety of home grown vegies. You can order her fresh butchered rabbits and chickens directly by calling 424-2233.

If there's anyone else out there who'd like to build up their back strength and shovel a second load of manure for the garden (Chris and I don't want to have ALL the fun!), Julia has donated a second load that's just waiting for us to go pick it up. Let us know if you'd like to help: alpinecogarden@gmail.com

Got fence posts? Yes we do!

Due to the great generosity of Mylrea and Ray on Kyle Rd. we have all the ten-foot metal "T"-posts that we need to put up the fence at the Alpine Community Garden. We still need the pressure-treated wooden posts (probably a dozen of them) so if you have any lying around that are just gathering blackberry vines, just let us know and we'll come liberate them before the vines get too nasty.



Chris and I planted a whole bunch of seeds today in our greenhouse (note the re-used tofu containers in the picture below. and "no", the seedlings didn't just pop-up today ). These are plants that need a longer growing season than they would get if we waited to direct-sow them: melons, squash, cucumbers, a few herbs and flowers.

Tofu containers "re-purposed" for seed-starting.

We've planted strictly "heirloom" varieties. These are non-hybrid seeds, or "open-pollinated" varieties that have been created through generations by farmers who selected the best fruits and vegetables and preserved their seed for planting in subsequent seasons. For example, last year we saved the seed from the first tomato that ripened on the vine with the hope that its offspring will also be early bloomers.

Hybrid seeds are created by the big seed companies by purposely crossing two types of plants to give one generation of plants with certain qualities. If you save seeds from hybrid plants and try to grow them out in later years, you will not have any guarantee that the seeds will grow "true" and have the same qualities as the original seeds, or they might not even sprout at all.

If you are interested in following along and learning how to save seeds for your own future gardens, keep your eyes out for good seed-saving containers: they should ideally be glass or plastic and seal air-tight. Zip-lock bags work well too. We like re-using materials as much as possible to keep them out of the waste stream.

Chitting Potatoes

Happy St. Patrick's Day! In this part of the world, St. Patty's Day is typically considered a good time to plant your potato crops. We'd like to have a really big potato crop at the community garden this year. Most people love potatoes, they store easily in the winter and, for the amount of space they take up in the garden you get a good return on your investment (each potato planted can produce as much as five pounds of harvest!) If you have your own garden this year, you can plant potatoes any time now. We'll put them in at the community garden just as soon as the ground isn't so soggy, and we get the tractor running. (Thanks for all your ideas for local tractor mechanics. We've got some good leads.)


If you haven't already, now is the time to start "chitting" any potatoes you've got sprouting under your sink. Chitting is a way to help the potatoes store up solar energy which makes them more likely to produce a big crop. The way to do this is to take the potatoes and put them near a window where they can get sunlight (don't put them in direct sun). They will start to turn a little green. If there are any long sprouts, they will harden off slightly making them less likely to snap off when we plant them. If you have potatoes larger than a hen's egg, with multiple "eyes", cut them so that each "eye has at least an egg-size piece of potato attached to it. After they have "greened up' a bit, and any cut parts have sealed over, they are ready to plant. Green potatoes are poisonous so don't eat them after chitting.


If all this is more than you want to take on right now, and you have sprouting potatoes you want to contribute, just drop them in front of the Alpine library door and send us an email that they're there so we can pick them up. We'll chit them and plant them in the garden.

Thanks to: Jack and Joanne: they found three of those carport frames that someone was going to take to the dump. These make excellent greenhouses (with a little bit of work). Thanks to the people at "Ten Rivers Food Web" for the warm welcome they have given us to link up with their site and help spread the word about our garden. They are a local group that advocates for healthy, local, organic solutions to food production and distribution. Click Here to see their website.

The Sharing Gardens is a non-profit and tax-exempt organization. We exist entirely through donations. If you have found benefit from our project or our site, please consider making a donation through PayPal. (Click button below.)

We Have Tools!

Dorothy got us copies of the well-house, and bathroom keys and Chris and I went down to see the tools we'd stashed in there during the community center clean-up after the honey people moved in last fall. We have several flat rakes, a leaf rake, multiple shovels and a wheelbarrow. There's also several hoses including a flat hose (the kind with holes poked every few inches) that will be perfect for watering our potato patch. What a great start!


Thanks go to: Lee Miller, at Earth Risings Farm for donating a wheelbarrow. Also to Evelyn and Dorothy (and others?) for the amazing job they did cleaning up and rearranging the library. It looks incredible!!!

Thornless raspberries, oh my!

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day here in Alpine. Chris and I went to Evelyn Lee's house and dug up a bed of thornless raspberries. Then we went to Steve Rose's and he donated several hundred gallon pots. At the Alpine garden site there is already a pile of dirt that someone had deposited there. Perhaps it's left over from when the picnic pavilion was built(?). Chris determined that it is good enough soil to host the raspberries until we can get them in the ground. He and I had a little potting party there in the park.

We ended up with over a hundred raspberry whips. We only need 50 for the garden. Does anyone need some for their own patch?
At the end of the day, just as we were finishing, there was a beautiful rainbow that appeared in the east. What a great day!

Follow-up: All the surplus raspberries have been spoken for. We're saving the ones still at the park to plant in the community garden.

P.S. Thanks also to Barry for his donation of a 10' farm gate. This is great! Also we are thankful to Rachel Unrein for all her help in thinking of people to contact about reaching out to young people, for bailing twine from her Grandpa's place and to her mother for a bag of sprouting potatoes. Lee Miller has donated a wheel barrow that just needs a little work. Gary (of Alpine Pump fame) spent some time down at the park this last week and got the electricity flowing again. We also want to thank Dorothy for all of her help in coordinating between the Alpine Community Center and the Garden Club so we could get permission to host the garden in the park. Patty Parsons has been writing grants for us. We'll start hearing in April if the first of them came through.