Campus Garden Grows Again - 2009 Edition

It's been an incredible time for the ECOS garden this year, which saw its first planting in mid-April. The volunteers and gardeners have been busy building new projects for the space, extending it, and seeing a lot of new vegetables sprout up!

Like always, the garden is organically grown, which means we use non-GMO seeds and organic weed and pest reduction methods. The garden is communally gardened, instead of a plot-based system, and open to student and community involvement. If you reside in the Edmonton-area, stop by and visit the garden near the University of Alberta campus on 89th Ave between 110th and 111th Street.

I'm Ashton, the Coordinator for this year's garden, and I hope this year's blog can help connect the volunteers, gardeners, community and interested web-goers to our garden online. Here you'll be able to have updates as to the status of our garden, observations of vegetable behaviour, tips and tricks in the garden, and then some recipes when the vegetables are ready for harvest.

Here's what's new for April 2009:

• Extended the garden north even further
• Lots of new beds in the garden with different shapes and sizes
• Acquired a plot of land next to the Eco House residence for gardening

Here's what's planted from April 2009:

• Beans: Snap Bush, Purple Royal Burgundy
• Roots: Scallion, Allysum Bull's Blood Beets, F1 Hercules Carrot, Garlic
• Leafy greens:Red Mustard, Red Russian Kale, Red Velvet Lettuce, Euro Red and Green Lettuce, Smooth Leaf Spinach, Tyee Spinach, Romaine Lettuce, Arugala, Red Leaf Lettuce
• Cucumbers: Lemon, Sweet Success, Diva
• Squashes: Green Tint Patty Pan, Table Ace, Yellow Zucchini
• Tomatoes: Green Zobra, Red Zobra, Mexican Midget, Juliet, Red Brandywine, Oregon Spring, Yellow Cherry, Silvery Fit Tage, Black Seaman, Purple Prudeuce
• Flowers: Milkmaid nasturtium, Candy man yellow calenvula
• Herbs: Italian Large Leaf Basil, Mrs. Burns' Lemon Basil, Lime Basil, Nayoletano Basil, Creeping Thyme, Orange Thyme, Savory, Common mint, Korean mint, Cumin, Curled Parsley, Dill, Chervil
• Berries: Strawberry, Raspberry
• Other: Sunny Vee Hybrid Corn, Rhubarb, Jerusalem Artichokes, Windsor Broccoli, Blue Wind Broccoli, Snow Peas

So if you have any of these varieties of plants in your garden and want to compare to send input, then keep visiting this blog, and feel free to post comments. Hope to hear about other's success stories.

The next update will include what's new for May 2009, and what will be coming up for the rest of the summer. Stay pruned!