A hard day’s work with LEAF!

With spring upon us, our veggies are really starting to take off! The list of garden chores to do is similarly growing in size… What can you get done in just a few hours? With a group of motivated, dynamic college students on board, it turns out that you can get a LOT done!

After a great lunch prepared by the Whidbey Insitute’s Chef Christyn Johnson (who knew that a raw chard and kale salad could taste so good?!), we split up into teams, some of us taking on a renovation of the chicken run, and others weeding, harvesting mulch, flipping the compost, and planting potatoes. First, we did a little weeding of the chicken run. The hens won’t eat nettles or comfrey, so a little maneuvering is necessary to crawl in and pull it out.

Our hens love the run that loops around the garden.
Apparently, so do our volunteers!

Next, a chicken culvert was built so the gate could open. Then we could extend the chicken run up to the greenhouse. The run now loops almost entirely around the garden! We also added a skirt around the chicken coop. The coop was raised up onto cinder blocks last week, to deter pests from entering the coop, and to give the hens a dry, cool place to take dust baths.

    

While Team Chicken was occupied, another group started harvesting mulch from a slope adjacent to the garden. Woody debris from land cleanups has been tossed onto this slope for decades, and the decomposing debris has become rich mulching material. We used the mulch on our herb beds.

  

Some volunteers also flipped our compost pile, weeded, and planted potatoes!

  

Whew! All that hard work done and in only a few hours. Much gratitude to our amazing volunteer team from the Learn and Serve Environmental Anthropology Field (LEAF) School from Edmonds Community College.

Thanks to the LEAF team: Marshall Kramer, Kyle Dewey, Jacob Assink, Grace Coale, James Elize, Cory Gunn, Aydan Hart-Mylie, Adrian Huebner, Connor Lenseigne, Chris Madison, Audrey Meyer, Scott Noll, Chelsea Rabourn, Christopher Shipway, Megan Taylor, Thi Van, Jessica Villines, Jacob West-Ugartechea, to garden apprentices Camille Green, Casey Jackson, and Alexa MacAulay, and to coordinators Maggie Mahle and Cary Peterson.

                                                                                                                                       ~~~ Alexa MacAulay

Chicks are here!

We’ve got a new addition to the family here at the Whidbey Institute! These four little chicks will be joining our two bantam hens in a matter of weeks. We are raising one of each of these varieties (from left to right): Black Australorp, Light Brahma, Americauna, and Cuckoo Maran. The Whidbey Institute staff is working creative magic and coming up with great names for these chicks!

A little bit of chick love.

Trellising the peas.

In the Westgarden, we’ve been working through sun and rain in these past couple of weeks to get our beets, carrots, peas, kale, bok choy, spinach, chard, spring onions, and mizuna in the ground!

The lettuce we planted out into our field beds three weeks ago is thriving, but not quite yet ready to harvest. We made a delicious salad for our weekly Thursday work party in the Westgarden using some overwintered kale and some wild edibles: chickweed, sheep sorrel, dandelion, miner’s lettuce, and a few salmonberry flowers for a splash of colour.

Mmm…

Thanks to our volunteers, we were also able to assemble new picnic benches and make some adjustments to our chicken coop.

Adding a new floor to our chicken coop to help deter pests.

Thanks to everyone who has come out to our work parties! We welcome all gardeners – new, curious, or experienced. Our work parties happen every Thursday at noon, rain or shine. Please join us for a tasty lunch prepared from the garden, and help us plant, weed, and harvest!

A beautiful day to be in the garden!

Fresh Food on the Table Banquet Fundraiser, April 28th

Providing fresh produce to the Food Bank YEAR ROUND!
Supporting local farmers, and educating youth!

Sunday, April 28th
Banquet Fundraiser and Square Dance
Whidbey Institute, Thomas Berry Hall

5 pm:  Appetizers, with Silent Auction and Veggie Photo ops
6 pm: Banquet from the Good Cheer chefs
6:45 pm: Program and Live Auction with Jim Freeman
Square Dance follows with the Mudhen Callers

The Whidbey Institute is a proud partner in Fresh Food on the Table, a community effort which supports the Good Cheer Food Bank in providing locally grown, fresh produce throughout the year, and offers apprenticeship and school garden programs for youth.

Reserve your tickets now at freshfoodonthetable.brownpapertickets.com
There is no cost to attend the banquet, but please donate generously!

Enjoy a delicious dinner prepared by Good Cheer chefs, and participate in a live auction, with Jim Freeman, of a garden variety of fun and useful items. Get the laughing muscles in your cheeks ready! A square dance with live music follows!

    
The Whidbey Institute Westgarden grows produce for the Food Bank throughout the season, and hosts a Community Gardening Leadership Apprentice who moves into a leadership role in the garden, and provides garden-based education for school children and community groups.

Join us for this special evening to support this initiative which strengthens community and local food security. Meet the youth and farmers who are growing for the Food Bank, and hear about all the ways Good Cheer is partnering with our community, schools and local non-profits to provide fresh veggies and fruit year-round to the Food Bank.

Fresh Food on the Table is a program of the Good Cheer Food Bank in partnership with the Whidbey Institute & South Whidbey School District, and in collaboration with the South Whidbey Commons, Deep Harvest Farm, Greenbank Farm & Skyroot Farm.

  

                                                 

Welcome to new apprentice Alexa MacAulay!

A big welcome to Alexa MacAulay, the 2013 apprentice in the Westgarden!

“I’ve been a self-described farmer for the past 7+ years, working on farms and community gardens throughout North America. From the Okanagan valley in British Columbia to rural North Carolina, I have pruned, transplanted, harvested and weeded a rainbow of fruits and vegetables with a curious hand. I’ve also worked with various urban agriculture not-for-profit organizations in my home in Ontario, and I believe that growing food is a powerful catalyst for social change and community development. I recently graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies and Community Arts at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and am thrilled to become part of the Good Cheer Garden and Whidbey Institute team. When I’m not preserving, cooking, growing, and otherwise exploring food, I love to get crafty. Most recently, I have been working with pottery, embroidery, and plant-based inks and dyes.”

                                                                          ~~~ Alexa

Spring is springing in the Westgarden!

 

We’ve planted more peas, and harvested overwintered kale to take to the Good Cheer Food Bank.

The Third Grade Waldorf School students planted potatoes.

 

And we’re prepping beds, and have planted chard, lettuce, kale and bokchoi.
It’s spring in the Westgarden!

 

A big welcome to Alexa MacAulay, apprentice in the Community Garden Leadership Training, who’ll be moving into a leadership role in the Westgarden, and also helping at the Good Cheer Garden and in the school gardens.

 
Yum, lettuce in the garden, and wild greens from the land- miner’s lettuce, chickweed, sorrel, dandelion!

Our Thursday work parties are starting up again, from 12 noon to 4 pm. Join us for lunch at noon with a delicious garden salad, and afterward we’ll work together in the garden to grow our salads, and all the other veggies!

 

It’s spring!

Another spring transformation by LEAF!

It is always a great pleasure when the LEAF Service Learning Program of Edmonds Community College comes to the Westgarden! On March 1st, we started the day with a visit to the Good Cheer Food Bank and Garden to learn about sustainable agriculture and community systems. A delicious lunch made by Chef Chrystyn followed that included kale, collards and potatoes from the Westgarden.

Then LEAF transformed the garden again with another terrific service project getting the garden ready for spring! The focus was sustainability and fertility cycles, and what better way to learn than to…

  

Harvest worm castings from our concrete in-ground worm bin and transport them to the garden where we’ll use them to amend the soil,

  

Turn over the garden compost, and free up a bin for all those vermicastings…

  

And flip over cover crops to increase the organic matter and richness of the soil.

  

The beds were sprayed with biodynamic Pfeiffer Field and Garden Spray, which inoculated the soil with beneficial soil microorganism to help with decomposing the cover crops. Mulching will reduce weeds, retain moisture and reduce leaching while the cover crops break down.

 

Lots of little lettuce and kale sprouts were transplanted into soil blocks, and peas, already sprouted in soil blocks, were planted in the garden.

WOW! A big thank you to: Jacob Assink, Grace Coale, Scott Collins, Alexzander Danskin, Francis Gregory, Sierra Klug, Tammi Koffler Coza, Sam LeBrun, Kyli Rhynalds, Gazella Richard, Paul Ritzman, Christopher Shipway, Dannika Stone, Leif Takacs, Jessica Villines, and Professor Tom Murphy, Americorp volunteer Marshall Kramer and Westgarden volunteer Mully Mullally.

We are ready for spring!

Spring coming to the garden!

  

The nettles are coming up in the forest. The crocuses grace the garden paths in fun random places.

  

The garlic we planted in seaweed is coming up, and the raspberries starting to bud out! Can it be true that we are having such a mild winter? Will February still bring us a hard frost and covering of snow?