I might be able to help if you will send a SASE?

Best wishes for your gardening project, Jenna. If you haven't already done so, be sure to contact the London Community Gardens coordinator. They have many resources for you. http://www.lcrc.on.ca/community_gardens.html

The people who have plots in the LCRC-coordinated gardens have organized themselves into an association. You can probably get the contact person's e-mail from the CG coordinator at LCRC. If you can't, let me know and put you in touch with him.

Regarding unusual vegetables, I suggest the following:

- "Liana" beans or yard-long beans. Very productive, delicious, and you can have the participants work together building the very hefty trellis they require
- "Fooled You" peppers. The taste of a Jalapeno without the heat
- Ground Cherries (Physalis pruinosa) harvest when they fall to the ground. The husks will be white and papery, and the fruits will be yellow. These re-seed in my garden, so you only need to plant them once.
- "Nevada" lettuce. Heat tolerant and slow to bolt
- winter squash: Black Futsu, Uchiki Kuri, or Long Island Cheese. All weirdly unusual but delicious
- any of the purple carrot varieties. There are lots
- any of the paste tomato varieties. You generally won't find these at supermarkets. They are best for sauce and home canning

When your gardens (and gardeners) mature you may want to adopt a variety from Seeds of Diversity's new "seed library": http://www.seeds.ca/sl/

You may also want to attend a London-area Seedy Saturday where you will find a seed swap table. People with no seeds to share are usually allowed to "take" seeds in exchange for a donation. There is a Seedy Saturday in London on Saturday March 13 (listed here: http://www.seeds.ca/ev/events.php

Your learning curve as a gardener will be steep, but do stick with it. Find some experienced gardeners for "hands on" help. You will need a lot of resources until your own skill level rises to the challenge.

Don't forget the most obvious source of "free" seeds: the supermarket or farmers market. The produce that you normally buy will contain seeds that you can save for planting. If you buy a squash, eat the flesh and save the seeds. Ditto for pumpkin, pepper, tomato.

Asking for free stuff on an exchange board is poor etiquette, but people here are generous and usually make allowances for newbies. However, it would be a good idea to post a link to your project's web page, so people can find out more about what you're doing and perhaps support you without the hassle of SASBEs.

Also, if this is a project supported by the library, there must be some kind of budget. I'd suggest that purchased seeds are worth the initial investment. Learn how to save them, and you'll have all the seeds you need for subsequent years.

Hope this helps.

- Bev

Bev?

Why does it matter if I offer to help if she sends a SASE?

Nes

Hello Bev and all,

Thanks for your great advice, especially the suggested varieties. I'll be sure to share it with all the people involved. I will absolutely be at that Seedy Saturday.

My information regarding London Community Gardens is the plots must be rented. The core of the initiative is 'food for all' and as the Crouch community is comprised of a low-income demographic, we are currently exploring other avenues and methodologies. Still a great resource, thank you.

This idea was just sparked about a week ago by a conversation between my supervisor, a patron, and myself. All programing funds for this fiscal year are already accounted for, but my supervisor is working hard to attempt to secure some funding - which will probably go to the cost of building the garden itself, should we get approval. For right now our seed capital (pardon the pun) is what Crouch staff and community members have generously donated.

Some of the more experienced gardeners in the area have impressed upon me seeds should have been started already, so I admit I'm going in enthusiastic but clumsy, with some sense of urgency. I apologize for the poor etiquette, and can only hope to redeem my faux pas by offering to reciprocate next year if all goes well.

As we don't have a web page yet (but great idea, Bev!) I'll tell interested parties a bit more about what the plan is so far:

We currently have approval to set up seed stations for people in the community to come and plant seeds in newspaper pots the kids have made. They can then take them home to sprout. (This idea was researched on the yougrowgirl.com blog and newspaper pots were found on ehow.com.) I just got a donation of soil this evening, so the first seed station will be tomorrow!

We are in the process of getting approval to run a donated grow light in the corner of the library. We will then run kids programs where they can plant the seeds and care for them. We'll have an educational component with book displays by the unit. In mid-May they can take them home or leave them at the library.

For the seedlings that are left, we hope to have approval for a free garden. Then we could run programs to plant and care for it. If we are not able to start the free garden, then the seedlings will be given away at the annual Crouch Plant Exchange to people in the community on May 15.

During this time, the Crouch Neighbourhood Resource Centre is co-ordinating the efforts of the Dillabough community garden, and I'll be working with Jacquie Carr from the CNRC to put together information and try coordinate some efforts. At this stage, I'm not sure exactly what these efforts will look like, but Jacquie and I are very excited.

Thank you, everyone, for your interest. If anyone is curious or has more ideas to share, please contribute. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
Jenna

Nes, I just get a little rattled when people ask for free stuff on an exchange board. It's actually against the rules. London has a FreeCycle ( http://www.freecycle.org/group/CA/Ontario/London ) that would be a better venue for freebie requests. Asking for stuff for a SASBE is great-- that's how many people got started, but the best way to do that is to search the exchange lists and make specific requests from individuals who are offering. But, as I mentioned, there are a lot of generous folks here (like you) who make allowances for newbies. And this appears to be a legit request for a good cause.

Jenna: for the cost of building your own garden, the library could rent a couple of plots through the Community Gardens program and have a lot of the work done for you. Just an idea.

Who says "seeds should have been started already"? Are they going to plant out in mid-April? Tomatoes are usually started six weeks before plant-out. Peppers eight weeks max. Onions, carrots, beans, peas are direct seeded. So are squash & curcurbits usually, but if you want to start them early, it should only be about two weeks.

- Bev

Hello Jenna,
You are doing a great job!!!
You 've got mail......................
AK

Thank you for the support!

I am thrilled to provide a SASE to anyone who would like to help us get started.

Times are hard. I believe helping others should not be subject to any boundaries.
In exchange of seeds, getting an email saying thank you is good enough for me.
Your seeds will be mailed on monday. Keep up the good work!.

Hi Bev,

I was actually the first creator of the freecycle group in London Ontario, and many others in the surrounding area. I ran the London Group from 2003 - 2008, until I had issues with the direction Deron Beal was taking the freecycle movement away from the grass roots organization it started out as. My recycling group for London is now called FullCircles London Ontario.
I have already adviced Jenna on some great local groups that would happily help her. and offered her what assistance I can with some seeds that I have.

I know how you feel about rules, I have a few on my groups that are there for good reasons.

Thank you for being so kind and for giving such great advice. I am thinking of one other group that is new to the London area that might be helpful, atleast in advice to Jenna. It's called London City Farm Network. I don't know much about it yet.
Have you heard of it?

I'm familiar with the City Farm Network. It's a project started by Rosemary ("Rose") White back in 2005. Rose was (is?) an anti-poverty and food security activist who worked with various City-funded organizations. She got permission to use some land way south on Wonderland Road, for a CSA. We did some "diggin'" with her at the start but we moved out of London a year later, and I understand she's not at that site any more (probably the developers got it). I don't know what's happening with the project these days. Rose is on Facebook so you could easily find out.

Interesting to hear about Full Circles. I'll check it out. I'm on the Aylmer Freecycle, but it's mostly requests for baby clothes and stuff for single moms. Not up my alley.

Jenna, I've sent you an e-mail via GW with my thoughts. As someone with a lot of experience organizing community projects, I know that enthusiasm is the center that radiates out and animates the other parts. The key is to get the other parts in place.

Enough of my rambling.

Hi Jenna,
I haven't heard back from you yet on the seeds you wanted.
Are you still interested?
If so email me.

Nes

Thanks for the ping, Nes. Seems I had some inbox confusion. My SASE is in the mail.

Thank you, everyone, who has sent seeds! We ran a Seed Station four days in the past week and are in great shape to run one every day over March Break! And everything, absolutely everything, has been donated or reused and repurposed.

Today I spend the afternoon (after attending Seedy Saturday) with kids making a new style of origami newspaper pot and sowing seeds. We are trying to find an easy pot that stays together well but does not need staples, tape or glue.

A co-worker took notice and researched each type of seed and typed up blurbs for bookmarks, which we will print on the back of once-used colour paper.

It's amazing how this is evolving. I show people or they see me working with the seed station accoutrements, and they ask to be involved - adults right through to small children. I don't know exactly where we'll end up with all this, but I'm confident it will be right where this community wants it to be.

Thank you, everyone, for your support.

Jenna,

Happy to assist. Give me an address and I'll mail seeds over. I've plenty to spare.

Ianna