Hello Members!
August 5 Work Party: The work party is this Saturday, August 5 from 7:30 – 9:30 AM and the garden will be closed until 9:30 AM for the general membership. Now is a great time to get some hours completed. 4 hours are required by April 30, in order to renew your membership and 2 of the hours are due by December 30. As we saw last year, many members ended up having to pay for hours because they left it to the last minute. We will check everyone in at the gazebo and provide instructions. We have a number of assignments that are important to maintain the infrastructure of the garden – please do your part.
Please let us know if you will be attending by replying to info@lbcg.org or let Greg know so we can plan accordingly.
Orchard Work Parties: The Orchard work parties are usually every Tuesday from 5 to 7 and are by appointment only by signing up at the Gazebo. Also, individual appointments are available by contacting Alan Coles at: lbcg.orchard@gmail.com. Your help is greatly appreciated.
Permanent assignments:
Further, we do have some permanent assignments available that you could sign up for. These are assignments that take 10 – 30 minutes each week and can simply be added to your regular garden work on your own time. These can be very satisfying endeavors.
We Need Volunteers For These Permanent Assignments:
- Food Bank deliveries once per week
Picnic:
For those of you who missed the picnic, it was a great success!! Many photos have been shared on the garden FaceBook page. For those who attended, it was great networking, tomato and salsa tasting, wonderful food, great Model T car display and more. The winning tomato was Momotaro and Bronze Torch came in second so consider those varieties next year. Fidel Rodriguez won the Salsa Contest and we will try to publish his recipe in the next update.
End of Summer / Beginning of Winter Season: By the end of August, gardens will be coming to the end of their Summer seasonal production. If plants are failing, we strongly recommend removal — even if these areas are vacant for a month. It is better to remove old rotted crops than to leave them to increase spread of disease. In September, consider removing all crops and starting to prep for winter planting.
We hope everyone had a productive summer season — tomatoes are wonderful. Thanks to everyone who donated your 10% to the Food Bank as it was and continues to be greatly needed.
For Winter, you should be thinking of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuces, etc. Look at the Planting Calendar for So California on the lbcg.org website.
Garden Reviews: All plots will be reviewed the first Week of every month with a 2nd review mid month. Please be sure your plot is in compliance and dig out all weeds in the plot and pathways and be sure that there is no overgrowth of plants outside of your plot borders.
Current Plot Issues:
- Plants growing into pathways
- Weedy plots and pathways
Boxes for Food Bank Deliveries: We are always looking for boxes to deliver vegetables to the missions. If you have any, please place them on top or bottom of the cages in the Food Bank at the gazebo. We need small to medium sized boxes, NOT large ones as they become too heavy. The amount of produce contributed to the Long Beach Mission and other charities was amazing this year. Those of you who contributed your 10% and more should feel very good about this at a time when so many are in need.
Garden Share Area – SE Corner next to the green shed: The garden share area is in the southeast corner by green shed. If you have something that you no longer use or need but someone else could use, please place it in this this spot. If you find something there that you can use, feel free to take it. Please leave only things that other gardeners may want to use and refrain from putting “junk” or unusable materials in the Share Area. Junk should be discarded in the gray bins. Metal cages that are no longer usable should be crushed by stomping on them before placing them in the trash so they don’t take up all the room.
Board Meeting: Next Board meeting is held on October 2nd, 2023 by Zoom from 6:30 – 7:30pm. Garden members who are interested should contact the President or email us at info@lbcg.org to receive an invitation to the meeting.
Happy Gardening,
Greg Marcotte on Behalf of the LBCG Board