Update from Alan Hickman

Saturday’s garden-in was quite the eye-opener. Considering that we have never before tried to organize anything like 25 people in the gardens at one time, the result wasn’t nearly the chaos that it had the potential to be. Margaret looked after an away-team clearing up the large display bed at the corner of Heart Lake Road and Old School. Laurie led a group clearing and mulching Block ‘C’. Joe, fractured wrist and all - though we didn’t know it at the time - got the general clean up under way. Chuck and Carolyn spent the afternoon dismantling boards removed from the Fall Fair grandstand seating so we can reuse them. A small group began the long job of potting dahlia and canna tubers and Nathan got the peculiar torture of bouncing up and down in the compost boxes to compact the contents. John C. arrived early and I handed him a sledge hammer and asked him to do what I thought was a fill-in job. The corners of all the beds in the nursery garden are marked with a wooden stake and the frost and wind over winter works them loose; so just bang them back in. Trouble was, I forgot to do the math. 80 beds, 4 stakes per bed equals 320 stakes! Even at 15 seconds a stake non-stop that’s about an hour-and-a-half of banging. By the end of the afternoon, John’s comment was: "I had no idea there was so much land here".

Around four o-clock when ominous thunder clouds came rolling in, the away-team came back with expressions of surprise. A couple of people working all day in large garden doesn’t make much of a difference but throw twenty into the battle and the results are very apparent. Timing, as they say, is everything. Just as Margaret and I locked the gate and left - about 5:00 p.m. - the heavens opened up, the wind blew, and what looked like a mini-twister or dirt devil went across from the west somewhere around the 410 extension and tree limbs and debris were spread all along Kennedy Road. The newly potted tubers all got well watered and suffered no distress sitting in the rebuilt cold frame. The only downside from the storm was that the rubbish from the general clean up got redistributed.

All the dahlia and canna tubers that were overwintered in the fairgrounds milk-parlor are now either in my garage or John R’s. So far, 415 dwarf red dahlias - enough to plant around the main building borders - 16 purple flecked tall dahlias and 54 cannas - which Phyllis overwintered - have been potted up.

When I purchased the border forks from Lee Valley, I completely cleared them out and they only had 13 of the 14 we needed. As luck would have it, only 13 of the 14 people who ordered showed up at the garden on Saturday so there was a perfect fit! A new batch of forks are supposed to arrive next week so I’ll make another trip then. If anyone wants a fork who didn’t order at the last class let me know and I’ll pick up more when I go.

Thanks to the weekend push, the total number of in garden hours has just jumped up to a little better than average. As of Sunday - the end of April for my accounting purposes - the cumulative total for the year stands at 126.5 hours. The three year average is 115 hours to this point. For the record, Chuck is already within spitting distance of his 17 hours and Linda is only an hour behind Chuck.

So far as I know, I’m available all this week til Friday a.m. and p.m. Apart from rain tomorrow and the threat of frost Sunday, the week’s forecast looks good and the winds are low, so we can take advantage and get some time in while the sun shines.

Call me around 8 a.m. and we’ll fix times.

Day +21 sun and cloud Winds SSW19km/h P.O.P.0%
Night +1 mainly cloudy Wind W17km/h P.O.P.10%