Volunteer Update from Alan R Hickman

At last, a wet dreary morning when I can sit and write and not feel guilty about wasting a beautiful gardening day.

What an October. I’ve been in the fairgrounds just about every day and, even when the sky has started out a bit iffy, the sun has broken through and it has been just perfect for doing whatever needed to be done. Mostly, the sky has been blue and the wind has been warm. Even the rain, about 3.5" in the measuring cup since the last update, has come late in the day and at night, and just as we needed it to keep the soil moisture right for making-up the nursery beds and for planting. Such a pity that only eight people have come to the garden to share an idyllic fall, and have hours booked to record their presence.

The vegetable ‘harvest’ is now all in. To go with the bed of generic garlic and our first ever digging of sweet potatoes, both already reported, the last of the onions have been pulled (30^th September) and the final rows of potatoes have been dug (4^th October). The tomatoes were a bust for the second year in a row, most of the varieties again succumbing to blight. The fruit of the few varieties which showed some resistance to the disease eventually rotted on the vines for want of someone to do the picking. The total crop amounted to 1,800 pounds. So far 700 pounds have been delivered to the Knights Table and the rest is either in storage for future donation (the Knights can only take so many potatoes and onions at a time) or it has gone/will go to volunteers.

Most of the month has been taken up preparing the nursery gardens for next year and everyone has spent time clearing weeds and profiling beds. Lynn and Glen have invested two mornings planting more than 500 garlic cloves for next year - two full beds of the generic stuff and five half-beds of the named varieties donated last year - and John has hauled 23 trailer-loads of straw from behind the barn for nursery bed mulching.

On the decorative side, all the dahlias and cannas have been lifted from the nursery beds and put into storage in the ‘milk parlour’. The large-flowered dahlias in the wedding garden borders have also been lifted and stored as have a number of the dwarf red dahlias which we use to edge the display beds around the main building. About a dozen and a half pelargoniums have been dug out of the large oval bed - the corner of Old School and Heart Lake - and they’ve been potted up as stock plants for next year’s cuttings. The tall burgundy-leafed Cannas planted around the main building, and all the remaining dwarf dahlias edging the beds, have yet to be brought in and be prepared for storage. Once the plants are out, the display beds can be made up and mulched for winter.

The dates for next year’s classes have now been booked. As a response to those who have asked for even more classes, an additional class in February will cover propagating and seeding and extending the season by starting plants indoors under lights. In April it is proposed to interleave two full-class in-garden sessions. In order to get nine indoor and two outdoor sessions scheduled around existing (paid for) classroom bookings, our class dates no longer fall at regular intervals. The present indoor dates are as follows: Sat 8 Jan, Sat 22 Jan, Sat 12 Feb, Sat 19 Feb, Sat 26 Feb, Sun 13 Mar, Sun 27 Mar, Sat 02 Apr, Sat 16 Apr. The outdoor sessions are the Saturday before and after the 16 April and are dependant on the weather. The time commitment for new students will remain at 16 hours. As always, past volunteers are encouraged to sit in on all or any of this years classes. A call or email to say you’re coming is nice but not mandatory.

Reservations have started to come in for 2011, but there needs to be more than last years fifteen bodies to make the effort worth while. Please try to get the word out.

As always, if you can find time any day, phone me before 8 am. Contact me and we’ll work around your schedule. With just a month to go before it’s too cold and too miserable to be outside, we are 250 volunteer hours down compared to last year and there is still a lot to be done in the gardens.

High Temperature:
Actual: 5°C cloudy Wind SSE16km/h P.O.P.44%
Average: 12°C
Record: 23°C in 1963

Low Temperature:
Actual: 2°C cloudy rain 5.30mm Wind SW11km/h P.O.P.50%
Average: 3°C
Record: -5°C in 1978