First day of the garden coop
Bob Cervelli, master gardener and owner of a very nice greenhouse, is kindly running his garden workshop again this year. There are perhaps 15 people involved. Everyone kicks in $30 for seeds and supplies, we show up once every second week to plant seeds and tend plants while Bob looks after them the rest of the time.
This was our first time there so it was an interesting and useful learning experience. Andrea and I were on lettuce and tomato detail: you start the seeds in plastic seeding flats, each of which is a couple inches high, about the size of a cookie sheet and has 72 plant locations. Andy and I planted five flats of seeds, that is, 360 plants over the course of three hours, including some time spent learning the procedure and some spent cleaning up.
There were perhaps 12 people working there and all together we got around 2000 plants started. Some of the people spent their entire time just loading flats with soil, most of the people were seeding like us, others were organizing the seeds while some were in charge of watering the completed flats.
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| Bob with a few of the flats | Seed organizing station |
Near the end, Bob took all the flats into his house to let the seeds use the warmth to germinate. As there were 30 or so flats he stacked many one on top of the other with them carefully arranged so the ones which would germinate first were on top. Once germinated, those ones would be moved to the green house (where it would be cooler but with the necessary sun) while the next ones to germinate would pop up and so on until all were in the green house. All very carefully thought out.
First day of 2013 Garden Coop
Today was the first day of the gardening coop hosted by Bob Cervelli. This year it was limited to 25 households as there are more people wanting to participate than there is space available. In order to make the concept available to more people Bob has launched Neighborhood Co-operative Greenhouses as a project of Transition Bay St Margarets complete with a how-to manual.
The general concept is that everybody participates in the planting and transplanting of the seedlings from now until summer and everybody then gets to take some of the plants home to grow in their gardens. The group typically meets every second week; the rest of the time Bob looks after the seedlings, which live in the small greenhouse shown in the first photo, The first three photos below show gardeners filling trays with soil and planting various seeds in them. Andrea and I worked on cabbage and lettuce but there were perhaps 20 different vegetables being planted today. Each of those starting trays has room for 72 plants so today I figure in total we got around 1500 plants started.
With a name like "Cervelli", yes, he has a latte maker and - as this is a social event as well as a gardening event - one of the participants usually staffs the latte maker and cranks out coffee while the rest of us crank out plants. Not a bad way to spend a few hours on a spring weekend.
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| In the greenhouse | In the workshop | Seeding a "72" |
Not directly part of the gardening coop, these two photos were taken in Bob Cervelli's lower greenhouse as we were heading out. Interesting to note the crops already growing happily despite it having been -10c the previous night. It is amazing what you can do with a simple unheated greenhouse and cold-hardy plants.
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| Bob's lower greenhouse | Plants in greenhouse |
Gardening Coop - session 3
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| Dealing with pak choy | Coop members and plants in the greenhouse | Andrea transplanting seedlings |
It's been an unusually cool spring so far but we have had a few sunny days and that's done wonders for the plants at the garden coop. Today there was some planting of new seeds but most of the time was spent looking after cases where there were too many plants in one cell. Not all seeds germinate so, particularly for older seed, we plant more than one per cell. Whoever planted the pak choy, first photograph left tray, apparently had a heavy hand with the seeds as it wasn't unusual to find five little plants in once cell. Then you get to pull them out, tease the roots apart and replant them in new cells, first photograph right tray.
Despite the cool, rainy day we had a good turnout and got lots of work done.
Gardening coop - session 4
OK, this is the fourth meeting of the garden coop and it's been six weeks since the first meeting. Unlike last time, when it was cold and not very spring-like, today the sun was shining, it got up to around +15c which felt warm and pleasant compared to the previous weather. With the great weather came a great turnout in gardeners: we counted 22 participants plus the videographer who was buzzing about taking shots for an in-progress video about how a garden coop works.
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| People planting and transplanting on the deck | Andrea filling trays in the greenhouse | Transplanting tomatoes in the carport |
Transplanting tomatoes was my station, along with the other folks shown in the photo above right. The people at the right are making up a soil mix and using it to fill the pots that the tomatoes are transplanted into. The people at the table are doing the actual transplanting.
Before joining the people at the transplanting station I helped carry lots of flats of seedlings that were ready to be distributed.
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| Seedlings ready to go | Seedlings ready to go |
Each of those flats has room for 72 plants, I count at least 24 flats so that's over 1700 seedlings that were ready to be taken home. All of which were planted at the coop and growing for no more than six weeks. Andrea and I got lettuce, peas, dill, cabbage, pak choy and a number of others.