2009 Year In Review
Update from Alan

The pictures below were taken in the nursery garden on Wednesday morning. Surprising how mulch and a bit of snow can make everything look tidy and under control. The last picture is of all the mud and slop that was the west end of Block D when work started last April.





Having a long warm November to make up the beds, and having mulch to spread made all the difference. Each bed took a truckload and a bit of straw so it’s easy to see how many trips John and Sandra made to and from the arena to get this much done. Thanks to the efforts of all those who kept showing up and putting in hours through the fall, the 2010 intake should have a much easier time come spring.

Talking of hours and the summery in Update #26, it should be remembered that we only record in-garden hours. The time that Dick spends maintaining the web site; that Margaret burns relieving me of paperwork; or that John spent in my greenhouse - sorting through trays of rotted and/or desiccated dahlia tubers and potting everything that seemed to have a spark of life left in it - is all in addition.

For the first time in three years, PTG has ended up with a positive financial balance. The cost of the ill fated booth for the 2007 fall fair has now been recovered and there is a small surplus.

Last summer ranked the 12th coldest and 6th wettest in 62 years - Hamilton saw one of the wettest hours in Canadian history when 100mm fell in 90 minutes - but, despite the cool days and cold nights, the nursery garden did manage a record output. Not an American ‘short ton’ (2,000lbs) not a metric tonne (2,200 lbs) but a good old Imperial ‘long ton’ 2240 pounds of vegetables. Not bad considering that late blight took out the entire tomato crop - which averaged around 350 pounds over the past couple of years.

What saved the day were the onions - two flats of seedlings donated by Ian Armstrong Landscaping - and the 10 beds of potatoes which all matured just before the blight struck. Although many people contributed to the potato harvest, especial credit has to go to Chuck for his dogged war of attrition against the Colorado beetles. Every morning, week after week, Chuck was in the potato patch hand picking adults, larvae, and eggs. It was the first year that there was no second generation of adults; Chuck drowned all the offspring and squished every last egg.

Phyllis introduced leeks, broccoli and Brussels sprouts to the garden. The leeks did well, with minimal attention, and we should plant at least a full bed in 2010. The broccoli produced several pickings, but we really need someone to teach us how to grow brussels productively. The no name garlic - originally introduced by Tony - did well and a new bed was planted in October. Margaret has donated five named garlic varieties. These will be grown on for a couple of years to build up stock. They increase 7 - 10 times per growing season and one bed will hold about 250 plants.

In 2009 we planted twelve potato cultivars, twenty-six dahlia cultivars and fifteen sorts of tomato for general use and comparison. This year I’m thinking of adding sweetpotatoes as a crop and several cultivars of canna for multiplying. There is a mail order supplier in New Brunswick which ships ‘short season’ sweetpotato slips. Cultivation seems to be quite labour intensive, at least initially, so it will be a learning experience for all concerned. Cannas on the other hand are pretty straight forward and they grow well for us. It’s just that the two sorts we’ve presently got are little more than weeds and we should be growing decent display material.

2010 classes start next Saturday. As a bribe for attendees, there will be quantities of all the fancy potatoes which we grew as well as the usual garlic sables and pumpkin cookies (recipes can be found under Recipes at the side) - our garlic and pumpkin of course.

High Temperature:
Actual: -5°C cloudy flurries 1.30cm Wind WNW20km/h P.O.P.57%
Average: -1°C
Record: 9°C in 2007

Low Temperature:
Actual: -14°C cloudy Wind NNW27km/h P.O.P.40%
Average: -9°C
Record: -21°C in 1968

2008 In Review
So far, 25 crates of dahlia tubers have been processed and stored in the milk parlor and about the same number of cannas are waiting to be divided and packed in vermiculite for storage. Phyllis has lifted and is storing all the tender plants from the wedding garden as well as some of the cannas and the pelargoniums from the corner bed.
In all we probably dug about half of the tubers from the corner bed the rest of them have frozen in and will either rot or be cleared in the spring. There should be more than enough tubers in storage for next year’s show.
The vegetable crop was a bit of a bust. We have delivered 991.9lbs of vegetables to the Knight’s Table, just not enough to make four digits. (Last year 1,254lbs, 2006 1,348lbs) The best crop was the onions, the six beds planted delivered about 350 pounds. The tomatoes were disappointing. There wasn’t a lot of blossom-end rot but the fruit tended to split around the stem and much of the crop was deformed and quite ugly. A few pounds of rutabagas have gone to the Knight’s but, without pest control, the leaves were shredded and the roots were well chewed. The turnips were worse affected, with worms boring right into the centre in some cases. I don’t mind cutting away most of the flesh to get some good bits for a stew but I’m not sure the Knight’s Table volunteers appreciate the extra work. The garlic seemed to be trouble free and 11 kilos were harvested from the one bed. It was not all pretty with a pristine white papery cover but the cloves were a good size and quite robust.
There has been a good demand for places at next year’s classes. In 2009, there will be eight classes, going through to the fourth Saturday of April. On the third Saturday in April, a full group working session, outdoors in the nursery garden, will be sandwiched between the last two indoor classes. Getting the whole group working together, digging ditches and raising beds, will perhaps avoid a recurrence of this year’s late start - or not.
If there is any nice sunny warm weather between now and the start of classes, there is still a lot to be done - pruning, clearing, mulching and moving stuff about - so, if anyone gets early cabin fever or needs pre/post-overeating exercise, give me a call.

Day -9 cloudy with snow Wind S12km/h P.O.P.3%
Night -17 cloudy with snow 1.5cm Wind SSE11km/h P.O.P.58%

A Year in Review
In 2007 the program was again expanded with the length of each class being increased by half an hour to two and a half hours.This increase allowed for more relaxed pacing and left time for questions at the end. Although the total classroom time increased to 17½ hours, the commitment for summer garden work was kept at 14 hours.With the combined force of 2007 students and volunteers returning from previous cohorts, two extensive shrub beds were added to the wedding garden. The nursery garden was augmented with an additional 3,600 square feet under cultivation and the area devoted to vegetables was doubled. The goal for the year was a ‘ton’ of fresh produce for delivery to the food bank.

Day -6 wc -13 sun and cloud with a few flurries Winds W35km/h P.O.P.40%
Night -12 wc -19 cloudy periods Winds W20km/h P.O.P.10%

2006 Year in Review

Overall summary for 2006 is as follows, 1,200 seems to be a common number. The total number of volunteer hours was just under 1,200, not quite double 2005's total but close. The total weight of vegetables delivered to the Knights Table was a tad more than 1,200 pounds.
The total cost to run the year’s program was a bit over twelve hundred dollars and the billable value of the material planted in the display gardens as about the same. Assuming I haven’t forgotten any bills, the enterprise should just about break even on the year.
Despite the drab and wet fall, taken as a whole, 2006 was a pretty good year.

The first four beds in the wedding garden were planted to perennials which had been grown and proven in the nursery.
The two new elliptical beds at the main entrance were planted for the first time and, with the help of hundreds of feet of hose strung together from the main building, the flowers just managed to survive the dry weather that ensued as soon as the plants went in. The big bed at the corner of Old School and Heartlake got a long needed make-over. The tatty sumacs came out and the bed was enlarged and made symmetrical. The flower beds at the front of the main building were given backer boards and a mulch path to prevent soil slopping up the walls of the building. At the rear, the flower beds were separated from the driveway using wooden edging to stop people driving over the flowers.
The nursery garden doubled in area to accommodate the new vegetable patch. When that proved to be too small, the three sisters (corn/beans/squash) got planted in the area which was not planned to be used until 2007. By the time everything was planted, around 9,000 square feet were under cultivation.
The new gravel driveway from the road to the nursery gate should improve access but the fall rain demonstrated pretty clearly that surface drainage will be a problem. I can see us having to dig a ditch across the middle of the drive come spring to get the water away. The ‘new’ storage shed did get dragged from behind the barn and into the garden although it's not in it’s proper location. Joe and I did a temporary patch job to cover some holes and the eaves are open so snow will still get in but all the smaller pots were moved into the shed and are out of the sun which should extend their life a little.
We've also received several bread trays for storage and I noticed that the pile of pallets is getting larger. At least we shouldn’t be lacking for pallets to build compost containers next year.Looking forward to 2007.

Answer Jan 3??? a 12 weeks

??? Dormant oil spray
a is banned in Brampton
b is a fungicide
c should be used before buds show green
d. none of the above
+10 with cloudy periods in afternoon


+9 light rain overnight

Our First Year 2004 In Review
In practice things worked out more successfully than might have been expected. Starting in January and ending in April, there were four, two-hour, seminars which took an eclectic look at all manner of things from how to sharpen a spade to what holds a tree up. In the gardens, what was planned as simple work parties turned out to be a season-long extension of the teaching/learning process.People who were skeptical during the seminars turned into believers when they put theories into practice and saw the results. The gardens also became a social place. Working in groups of two or three, people got to know each other as they got to learn new skills and techniques. Perhaps most importantly, as everyone managed at least once to tip over a wheelbarrow or to stab a tulip bulb with a fork or to fall backwards off a garden stool, nobody felt particularly inept, embarrassed or vulnerable.For half a dozen of the seminar attendees, a couple of hours here and three or four hours there soon added up and the original eight-hour commitment became a distant memory. With the enthusiasm of the 2004 volunteers, the nursery garden was more than doubled in area, going from a neglected patch of shoulder-high weeds to over three thousand square feet of cultivated bulb and perennial beds. Existing baked-up display beds in the public area of the fairgrounds were re-worked and more than two-thousand spring-flowering bulbs were planted. Even large misplaced shrubs were given legs and relocated to where they could grow and be useful. By the end of November 2004, when the gardening season finally came to a close, the gardens had benefitted from more than five hundred volunteer hours.