July Garden Meeting Notes

Posted on by Orange Village Community Garden

Upcoming outings:

August 19th: Rockefeller Greenhouse: meet at Orange Village Community Garden (OVCG) at 9am. We will also visit the gardens on East Boulevard

September 16th: Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens. Meet at OVCG at 9am.

Other upcoming outings: to consider Holden Arboretum, Case Western Reserve – Fairmount, etc.

Weeds:

Please pull weeds in your garden beds and around your garden area on the paths. Otherwise, the weeds will be sprayed. Pulling weeds will reduce the likelihood of having herbicides sprayed in the garden.

Spigots and hoses:

If hoses are hooked up to the common spigots, please share. Anything hooked up to a spigot is considered community use.

Going to seed:

If you plan to allow your plants to go to seed, please use a cloth or nylon bag to collect seeds and prevent them from spreading throughout the garden.

Salute to Orange September 3rd:

Please consider volunteering to help promote the garden to community members.

We may need people to shuttle people over to the garden (maybe in a golf cart if we have permission) and also to be at the garden to give tours and show off the garden. UPDATE: We still need volunteers but we will not be doing tours of the garden. Volunteers are needed to help out with the Salute to Orange at the Village Hall/Fire station. Gardeners who have extra produce to spare are asked to donate produce for a display at the Salute to Orange. Baskets will be donated afterwards.

Tours of Orange Village Community Garden:

If you know of anyone who would like a tour of the OVC garden, please contact a member of the garden club. We also welcome schools and girls and boys organizations to visit our garden. Please let us know what your group would like for us to do to help.

Suggestion for garden pest control:

Japanese Beetles – shake the beetles off of leaves into a jar of soap and water. Or use garlic oil on the plants

Cucumber beetles: some people use seven dust (not organic), others use diamataceous earth (organic, does not harm animals or humans).

 

 

 

Benjamin Franklin Community Garden Tour Saturday, June 24th

Posted on by Orange Village Community Garden

Please join us for a tour of Benjamin Franklin Community Garden on Saturday, June 24th. We meet at the Orange Village Community Garden at 9:15am and carpool to the Benjamin Franklin Community Garden at 1805 Tampa Ave, Cleveland, Oh 44109.

The tour is scheduled to last approximately 1 ½ hours, starting at 10am.  This is the first community garden in the USA, founded in 1929. It is also the largest community garden in the state, covering 5 acres and 180 plots.

Garden Meeting Notes

Posted on by Orange Village Community Garden

We had a good Orange Village Community Garden Meeting in the garden at 10am this morning. Most gardens are looking great!

Cucumber Beetles have been seen in the garden so it may be a good idea to spray for them early. Some gardeners use Garlic oil or neem oil. Eddie, our local Master Gardener, suggests using a solution of neem oil in water. He uses 1 ounce of neem oil per 1 gallon of water. Some recipes online also suggest adding a small amount of castile soap as well. Another gardener uses homemade garlic oil to deter pests.

Gardeners took a tour of the garden and enjoyed all the beautiful plants gardeners are growing.

A few gardens had tall weeds growing and need to be removed. If you have not visited your garden in a while, please stop by to make sure that there are not weeds growing. Warning letters will be sent soon.

Field Trip: June 17th: we are planning to take a tour of a local garden. More information to come..

Garden Clean up day was a success!

Posted on by Orange Village Community Garden

Please take a look at what volunteers accomplished to improve organization  and functionality of the shed and surrounding area!

The shed was cleaned out, repaired and reorganized. The bulletin and dry erase boards were moved to create space for a tool organizer for shovels, rakes, broom, etc..  If you would like to, please add your name to the list of names and plot numbers on the dry erase board so that fellow gardeners can learn your name.

The area surrounding the shed was cleaned up as well. The muddy space behind the shed that had filled up with broken wire cages and muddy tarpes was cleaned. Tarpes were refolded and stacked outside of the shed under a wood base topped with a planter of nasturtiums and lunaria. Wire cages were reshaped and some reused by gardeners and others are stacked inside the front of the garden by the gate.

The area behind the shed was planted with raspberry plants donated by Fred. The berries will be for community use. So if you see berries ready to pick in coming weeks, please take some. Thank you Fred!

FREE STUFF:

Please take any items that are stacked inside the front gate of the garden. Items by the trash are more broken and those on the other side of the gate are in better condition. Please take what you would like by the end of Memorial day. After Memorial Day, the  items will be thrown away.

THANK YOU!   Thank you to everyone who participated in OVCG clean up day!

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Garden Meeting Notes

Posted on by Orange Village Community Garden

We had a fun garden meeting this morning in the Village Hall.

Here are some notes from the meeting:

Season Start Clean up request:

If you have not already, please remove weeds from your garden beds and paths. Letters to gardeners in violation of the weed rules will be sent to those who don’t clean up soon. Some gardens have weeds that are going to seed, and we want to avoid the weed seeds from spreading to other garden plots. Thank you for your help keeping beds and paths clean of weeds.

Herbicide will need to be sprayed in paths (not garden beds) if weeds grow. If we all work together to keep weeds picked, the need for herbicide use will be reduced.

If you have been away or need to be gone, you may cover your plot with plastic or other covering to prevent weed growth.

Garden Work Day: Saturday, May 20th (rain date May 21st):

Please join your fellow gardeners for a fun day cleaning up in and around the shed!

Wood Chips:

After the composted horse manure and Rid-All compost (for gardeners who purchased it) removed from the bins, wood chips will be delivered for gardeners to spread in the paths around their beds to prevent weeds. If you have a few extra minutes, please also consider spreading wood chips to common areas.

Garden Gate Lock:

Please make sure the lock is locked and the numbers turned away from the open combination.

Garden Gatherings Fridays from 6-8pm

As soon as the weather is nice enough, we will start holding garden gatherings every Friday from 6-8pm. Please bring a beverage and snacks if desired.

Giving Away excess produce:

If you would like to donate produce to any particular organization, please let us know what date and time you will pick it up from the garden, and we can announce to gardeners in advance. If any gardeners have excess produce at that time, they can leave it in a designated spot in the garden for you.

New Directions is one Orange Village organization that would love to have extra produce. Closer to harvest season we will publicize a date and location in the garden to place your donated produce for it to be delivered to New Directions.

Thank you to the Service Department and Administration:

Later in the season, we may have a lunch for the service department, as we did last year, to thank them for all of their hard work making the garden beautiful. They built two new beds to accommodate new gardeners, they fixed the fence, they do maintenance to the garden, and they deliver leaf hummus and wood chips to the garden.

We would like to also thank some key members of the administration with produce baskets. More to come later, but please keep this in mind.

Garden Blog contributions?

If you would like to post gardening tips, garden related announcements, recipes, photos or other items of interest to your fellow gardeners, please email to orangevillagecommunitygarden@gmail.com or come to a garden meeting.  We can post on the blog or garden bulletin board, as appropriate.

Next Garden meeting: Saturday, June 3rd at 10am