PRGC - Season 3 - 2012

Little cucumbers get a new home

Welcome to season three at the Parker Road Garden Coop.  Even if the blog is a little behind the times, we are already moving fast at the garden. Most of the starting has been down. Thanks to everyone who planted all those seeds and potted them up.  Most of the tomatoes have been planted in the garden and we should have the rest of them, along with several other crops, planted this weekend. A trampoline, although not directly related to the crops, has arrived and has made kid time at the garden that much better. Spinach is already flourishing in the greenhouse. The peas are up and running, too. We are happy to see some new faces coming to help out this year and expect a few more, which is good because we may have doubled our tomato numbers. The weekly Weed and Beers (weeding and drinking beers or just weeding) will start in a couple of weeks on Thursday nights. Once again we will make the attempt to add a few more items here in the blog. If you are here for the first time, welcome. Stay tuned!

Second Season at PRGC!

PRGC Take Two! The winds have returned so it must be planting season. We are already well into the start of our second growing season at the coop. The garden was dismantled and cleared with the help of a handful of members. The greenhouse and the garden was tilled with compost and manure. Rows lines and irrigation lines have been set back up (around the time of the White fire in Ruidoso Downs). Prior to and during this, several members have been busy starting seeds in the shop. peppers, spinach, tomatoes, cabbage, basil are now growing well and many have been repotted. We have greens and chard and arugula in the ground in the greenhouse being watered by the new sprayers.  Onions and spinach are in the ground outside.

So much more on the way. Got some potatoes in the mail this week and a lot of new seedlings need repotting using the new potting contraptions. 

A few new members have joined the coop and there is talk of a few more new faces coming soon. 

More to come.

Progress...

Heading into summer, the PRGC is proving to be a successful co-op, and a successful garden. Tomatoes are going gang-busters in the greenhouse and surviving the late spring winds outside, thanks to a revised strategy and dozens of buckets. (See photo at right.) Luther calculates that if the tomatoes fail to live up to their potential 40-pound-per-plant yeild, we'll still harvest around 1,500 pounds. If your mouth doesn't water at the thought of freshly-picked vine-ripe tomatoes in July, check your pulse. The potato plants have also poked through the soil, their hearty leaves making promises for late summer and fall. Over the weekend, the upper bed was filled with corn and bush beans; seedlings should debut soon.

Fruits of labor...

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems. ~Rainer Maria Rilke

Here we are: sunshine and rain, sometimes at the same time; teeny green things poking through the wet soil; daylight until past the kids' bedtimes. Spring brings lovely things to the Parker Road Garden Co-op--pea shoots, French breakfast radishes, and greens and greens and greens. And underneath the dirt? Cabbages! Tomatillos! Scallions! Arugula! Lettuce! Potatoes!

The French breakfast radishes (see photo, right) are beautiful and delicious. (To those volunteers who have not yet picked some: Please come help yourselves!)

Out like a lamb...

After a beautifully sunny (albeit windy) weekend, and 76 contributor hours in the work log, the garden is well on its way. In addition to lettuce and radishes, 200 feet of spinach has been sown. Hopefully the wind will subside by the time those tender little spinach leaves get big enough to care. Potatoes have been cut for planting and should be in the ground this week. On the maintenance front, volunteers diligently removed more rocks from the second half of the garden, which has also been ripped, graded and amended with topsoil.  More beds will be established following a healthy helping of compost. A fence has also been built on the west side of the site to keep the prolific deer from helping themselves to the salad bar.

Progress...

The Parker Road Garden Co-op is officially off the ground (or in the ground, if you want to be literal about it). The lower bed has been prepped and is ready for planting; lettuce and peas are in. The upper bed has been rototilled, but needs some compost. Potatoes have been cut and are being aged to plant. They'll go in the ground sometime this week. There's lots to do, from cleaning and organizing to installing irrigation to prepping and planting beds. We still need to get starters potted for warmer weather veggies; they'll stay in the greenhouse until they're ready to plant.

Seed is planted...

The Parker Road Garden Co-op is the brain child of Luther Light, owner of a stretch of land along the Rio Ruidoso. With enough land to support a gaggle of people, but not enough hands to work it, Luther gathered a bunch of hungry and eager friends to begin a community garden. After an initial organizational meeting, the Parker Road Garden gate was officially opened to anyone who wanted to dig, sift, sort, mulch, weed, plant, pick or eat. Volunteers work on a whatever-needs-to-be-done-basis and log their hours in an online spreadsheet. Whatever results will be shared come harvest time.