UNA Community Gardens

Email subscription activated!

Sanja — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 00:55:28 +0000

We have now enabled the email subscription for UNA Community gardens website. This means that on the day that a new post is published, you will get an email notification.

To subscribe to this service, please click on the link below (or on the right under Get an email update).

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Garden Plot Renewal and new Garden Application Form for 2011

Sanja — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 06:25:41 +0000

Reminder for the gardeners who would like to keep their plot for another year to complete the Garden Plot Renewal form and the Plot Holder Agreement form (both also available from the UNA reception desk) and return it together with the $35 annual fee to the UNA office by March 31.

For people who would like to apply for a plot in the Hawthorn Community Garden the new Garden Application form is available.

Heather’s notes from the gardening seminar

Sanja — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:31:20 +0000

As promised, here are the notes that Heather took during the seminar (doc, pdf). They are a great complement to Miles’s slides.

Slides from the gardening seminar

Sanja — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:47:42 +0000

On Tuesday, March 2nd, Miles Hunter from David Hunter Garden Centers gave a very informative gardening seminar in the Old Barn Community Centre. Miles was kind enough to share his slides with us (gardening workshop slides). We’ll soon post notes from the seminar that Heather is currently preparing.

Coffee and gardening

Sanja — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:05:06 +0000

Every day across America, Asia and Europe, millions of pots of coffee and tea are brewed, and the millions of pounds of wet grounds, filters and bags thrown in the trash. This is both wasteful and foolish.
Coffee by-products can be used in the garden and farm as follows:

Sprinkle used grounds around plants before rain or watering, for a slow-release nitrogen.
Add to compost piles to increase nitrogen balance. Coffee filters and tea bags break down rapidly during composting.
Dilute with water for a gentle, fast-acting liquid fertilizer. Use about a half-pound can of wet grounds in a five-gallon bucket of water; let sit outdoors to achieve ambient temperature.
Mix into soil for houseplants or new vegetable beds.
Encircle the base of the plant with a coffee and eggshell barrier to repel pests.
If you are into vermi-posting, feed a little bit to your worms

Garden Seminar on Tuesday March 2nd at 7pm

Sanja — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:25:57 +0000

Everyone is welcome to attend this garden seminar presented by Miles Hunter of David Hunter Garden Centre. As before, he will share gardening tips and answer our gardening questions. Upstairs Meeting Room at the Old Barn Community Centre.

Garden Plot Renewal

Sanja — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 00:08:27 +0000

Reminder for the gardeners who would like to keep their plot for another year to complete the renewal form (also available from the UNA reception desk) and return it together with the $35 annual fee to the UNA office by March 15.

Invitation to gardeners to contribute to UBC Local Food Cookbook

Lana — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:44:14 +0000

The UNA Community Gardens group has been invited to contribute to a “UBC Local Food Cookbook” that aims to provide healthy recipes for each month of the year, featuring local and in season ingredients. Groups on campus who grow, make and sell, research and promote local food will be featured in a calendar month, with their recipes corresponding to what’s in season that month. The UNA Community Gardens group would be considered as a single contributor.

The cookbook organizer is asking our group to submit two recipes in total containing local and in-season ingredients for the month of September. In-season ingredients include:

Vegetables: Artichokes, beans (fresh & dried), beets, broccoli, cabbage (green, savoy & red), carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard (swiss), corn, cucumbers, fennel (bulb), garlic (dried & fresh), kale, leeks, lettuce, mustard greens, onions (red & yellow), parsnips, peppers, pumpkins, potatoes (red, russet, yellow, white), radishes, rutabagas, salad greens, shallots, spinach, squash (winter), tomatoes, turnips (white), zucchini.

Fruits: apples, crab apples, cranberries, grapes, melons, pears, plums, prunes, strawberries

Also, the theme of the book is “health in the workplace”, so contributors are asked to send recipes that people can easily make for lunch (i.e., soups, salads, sandwiches, casseroles, etc.).

If you have a yummy, easy recipe to share with any or several of the ingredients listed above, please forward it to unasustainability2006@yahoo.ca by Monday, October 12, so the Gardens Committee can provide two recipes to the cookbook organizer. Apologies for the short deadline, but this request just came in from the cookbook organizer. Having the UNA Community Gardens featured in a cookbook is a great opportunity to raise awareness of community gardening in the UNA, as well as promote local organic food.

Thanks!

New community garden in Wesbrook neighbourhood for 2010!

Lana — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:12:00 +0000

Great news! UBC recently provided the UNA Community Gardens Committee with conceptual site plans for a new community garden in the Wesbrook Place neighbourhood. The new community garden will be located in Nobel Park on Wesbrook Mall.

The new garden should accommodate at least 40 plots (though possibly more) of about 50 square feet each, similar in size to current Hawthorn plots.

The UNA Community Gardens Committee will soon convene a small working group of current and waitlisted gardeners to develop design options for community feedback.

When the Nobel Park garden plans are finalized, the plot allocation process will begin. First, current Hawthorn gardeners will be given the opportunity to transfer their plot to the new garden. Next we will turn to the UNA gardens waiting list (which currently numbers 85 people) to allocate open plots in Hawthorn and remaining plots at Nobel Park.

Meanwhile, the Gardens Committee will continue its work of trying to secure additional community garden space at UBC.

Thanks to Gardens Committee chair, Heather, for new picnic table at Hawthorn Garden

Lana — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:10:23 +0000

By now, Hawthorn gardeners and passers-by will have noticed (and used) the new picnic table at Hawthorn Garden. Gardens Committee chair, Heather Friesen, and her friend Gordon constructed the tables from scratch during the summer. The table has been used numerous times since for picnicking gardeners and their families and friends — just another way that the garden builds community.