July Updates for the Solstice Garden

We have updates for you! These announcements come from a number of sources – thank you to everyone* who chipped in news items and photos to share with our community.

Leadership Team Updates

The leadership team met Wednesday, July 14th and discussed a number of items. The most notable include:

• We will be hosting an autumn social gathering toward the close of the gardening season. Stay tuned for more information and for opportunities to help with planning!

• We decided to focus volunteer efforts for the remainder of this season on Solstice P-Patch maintenance, our autumn social gathering, and early preparation for next year’s spring plant sale. With this in mind, we decided against hosting an autumn plant sale this year.

• Tim is talking with a number of fellow gardeners about options for clearing the overgrown area around Kristy, Jim, Stephanie, and Aimee’s plots. Stay tuned for additional updates.

• The Solstice plot map in the garden shed is updated and all plots are currently taken.

The meeting minutes are available for your review – please let Tim or Aimee know if you have any questions.

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Plant Storage

If you recall, there were leftover plants from our spring plant sale that we wanted to keep for next year’s sale. Thanks to the efforts of Thomas and his brother, and materials from Sandra and Tim, we now have a plant storage area with a garden fabric cover to nurture and store plants for the plant sale or general plant first aid. The design was inspired by a similar structure already built in the plot north of the Giving Garden.

To prepare the site the soil was first leveled. Then, round metal stakes were used to support the hoops and a little bamboo to help it hold its shape. The side facing the rhubarb can be unlatched for easy access to water and provide plant care. Thomas plans to continue tinkering with the shelter to improve it as needed. Thank you to all involved in making this shelter a reality!

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From the Orchard - Bad and Good News

Burned plums! :(

Green grapes! :)

Unfortunately, some fruit suffered damage from the heat wave with "burned" spots on the fruit (especially the red plums (left photo above)). Though damaged fruit was removed, there is still plenty of fruit on the tree that is in the process of ripening.

The pear trees dropped almost all their fruit again this year. All are suffering from pear rust, which is weakening the trees over time. There is no good organic treatment for this fungus.

In better news, the green grapes have a lot of clusters (right photo above). And so far, the Italian plums and figs are OK!

Big thanks to Jim Cummings for orchard irrigation improvements! We now have new ½" drip lines running on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, ensuring that our fruit trees have the water they need on a regular basis. This is a welcome timesaver for our gardeners.

*Beyond the Leadership Meeting we had updates from Jim, Sandra, and Thomas for this blog post. The photos in the orchard section are from Sandra. Thank you!