Here in Southern California, the winter months are “prime time” for leaf vegetables like chard, kale, and collards.  And we have plenty of snowpeas, both green and a “Blauwschokker” heirloom which is dramatically purple!

See the slideshow here

Plant three rows of peas:

1. Peas of mind
2. Peas of heart
3. Peas of soul

Plant four rows of squash:

1. Squash gossip
2. Squash indifference
3. Squash grumbling
4. Squash selfishness

Plant four rows of lettuce:

1. Lettuce be faithful
2. Lettuce be kind
3. Lettuce be patient
4. Lettuce really love one another

No garden is without turnips:

1. Turnip for meetings
2. Turnip for service
3. Turnip to help one another

To conclude our garden, we must have thyme:

1. Thyme for each other
2. Thyme for family
3. Thyme for friends

Water freely with patience and cultivate with love.
There is much fruit in your garden because you reap what you sow.

(from a pamphlet of the Tai Sophia Institute, the origin of the poem is unknown.)

compared to last June (2008).

“Starting today, mandatory water conservation measures take effect that restrict landscape watering with automatic sprinklers to Mondays and Thursdays, before 9:00 am and after 4:00 pm.  Watering by hand with a flow-control nozzle is allowed on any day, before 9:00 am and after 4:00 pm. No watering whatsoever is allowed between 9:00 a.m and 4:00 p.m.”

To our garden caretakers:  Please note that this means that you must finish watering before 9am, or you must begin after 4pm, ANY DAY OF THE WEEK INCLUDING WEEKENDS.

A few other restrictions that pertain to our work:

PROHIBITED WATER USES:

* Use a hose to clean hard surfaces such as sidewalks, walkways, driveways or parking areas
* Allow leaks to go unattended
* Overwatering causing runoff on to the sidewalk, street, or gutter

These new rules are in effect as of today, June 1.

Please remember that the phrase “water the plants” is misleading — we aim to water the SOIL because that’s where the plant takes up the water.  And as we get into the summer vegetables, plants like zucchinis and cucumbers DON’T LIKE their leaves to get wet!  They will get mildew far too early in their season.

Thank you for your part in helping the community garden adhere to LADWP provisions.  And thank you for volunteering at the garden!

Last Sunday, May 3, was the tour date.  We had between 140 and 180 people come through the garden that day!

When they asked us to put the Community Garden on the tour, we went right to work.  We jumped into action on plans we’d long been mulling, and installed the newest phases: the Medicinal/Culinary Herb Garden and the Citrus Garden.

Meanwhile, landscape architect John Tikotsky reworked Holy Nativity’s Meditation Garden, a challenge as it is deeply shaded by buildings, walls and trees.

The newly installed Medicinal/Culinary Herb Garden, May 2009

For the tour itself, we prepared a map of all the different functional gardens at Holy Nativity, together with some bits and pieces about our ongoing activities.  (download pdf of map here)  Photos of the tour day are online here.

If you missed the tour date, much of the garden is always open.  The main vegetable garden and herb gardens are ungated and open to the sidewalk.  The meditation garden is typically unlocked, but in any event should be accessible Tuesday through Sunday afternoons.  You’re welcome to come by 6700 W. 83rd, Los Angeles 90045 and visit.

Since we talk about soil building at nearly every session of our free Organic Vegetable Class Series, and since the pile Gene created in our October workshop had matured and its material been added to our garden, it was perfect time for another workshop.

Gene is our “compost master.”  Prior to Gene’s arrival we had been using the black plastic composters from the city.  We weren’t maintaining them properly — the material was always too dry, or unmixed, or had exposed food material that drew swarms of fruit flies.  The pile Gene created last autumn matured so quickly, during the coolest months of the year, and created such volume of compost, that it was absolutely amazing.

We began our hands-on workshop by tearing out some ornamental shrubs in the back of the site — a location where we wished to grow citrus trees.  The old ornamentals became fodder for the compost pile.  We stripped the leaves and light twigs off and separated them from the heavy branches.  A few of the very heaviest trunks were too tough for quick composting, but just about everything else went into the pile, each in its turn, as you’ll see in the photo essay.

Gene had acquired a bale of straw that was somebody’s discard (”one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”).  You’ll see us using that as the final layer in the pile.  The straw serves to retain moisture in the pile, but also to make it look finished and nice for a completed approach.

Gene has counseled us to label the pile we built with a sign that marks it as “closed” or digesting.  Any new material we generate (weeds, kitchen scraps, garden discards) will be accumulated toward a new pile we’ll make in a few months.  Meanwhile, this new material for the new pile will be placed in a temporary “holding” pile beneath straw to keep away pests.

Thank you to Patricia and Jay Edie for creating a slideshow/photo essay (note text at top of each photo) that documents the whole process of building our compost pile.

Click here for Photo essay

1) to make the plans available to all our Thursday volunteers, regardless of whether they have the “official” dog-eared folder of scratchy pencil marks on crumpled paper smudged with mud, and

2) to make our layouts available as a resource for vegetable gardeners all over.  We’ve seen many searches for “vegetable garden layouts,” so here you are!  Welcome to our garden.

Spring 2009 in our Community Garden:

The "A" bed garden layout, Spring 2009

The "B" pattern garden layout, Spring 2009

The "C" pattern garden layout, Spring 2009

The "D" pattern garden layout, Spring 2009

The "E" pattern garden layout, Spring 2009

Our garden follows a strict rotation system.  Each “pattern” (A, B, C, etc., above) moves through the rotation over a 4 year period.  Read more about our vegetable rotations here.

Layout for the Medicinal/Culinary Herb Garden is online here.