Long time no see, friends! Apologies for the delay in posting but, my, have we been busy! Since we are getting to the end of this program we had our practicum last week where we were out of the classroom. One of us went to Kilrich and one of us went to Health Promotions Unit, and had a wonderful WEEK. We are back in the office this week and back to business as usual. Because our spring hasn't sprung, the first bit of our week was spent troubleshooting how to get the heat going in our big, 'ol greenhouse. For our heater to kick on, and make the space roasty toasty, we have to have the heater at 10 degrees which just did not happen. We've had the coldest recorded March in Yukon history this year meaning our seedling babies don't stand a chance. In the meantime, we have been shoveling to at least keep the walkway clear. We have a guy from Yukon Electric coming in tomorrow so that we can hopefully start planting on Monday next week. In troubleshooting, we tried different combinations of heaters, in different locations, at different times - to no avail. Boo hoo!! On the plus side, MORE TOYS!!! We had WAY too much fun opening the boxes of gardening items from Lee Valley Tools. Some of the items we unpacked include portable kneeling stools for working on the sidewalk out front, a water bag to help transport water in to our winterized greenhouse and a handy tool that pumps out one seed at a time. How excited we are to use these! Another thing we got was the Grow Light Garden which uses a self watering mat and grow lights to start little plants! In order to get the seeds for the planter boxes started we will be picking up at least 40 bags of compost and 5 bags of sunshine mix early next week. Remember, always lift with your legs. Although we could have picked them up this week, they were frozen (-35 will do that) so will be defrosted first. Thank you Mother Nature. Sprouter, sprout stuff! Triton radishes, sandwich booster and Kamut, oh my! We have started new sprouts, with a second attempt at ch-ch-ch-chia seeds. Wish us luck! The last batch was a little... little. We planted some parsley for the 6-plex as these seeds need to be sprouted before being transplanted in to the tower for the best growth. Did we mention we also gave the 6-plex a trellis for their snow peas and nasturtiums!? Cause we did. Speaking of garden towers - Holy Hannah, there's mold! EVERYWHERE!! Just kidding, only in one spot. There was some bread that didn't escape the hole of darkness. It has now been removed and all is well. And in between all of that, we built some resumes. Lastly, thank you reading. We love sharing our experiences and we appreciate your views! The first several photos are of our lovely participants with our new toys from Lee Valley Tools. The 3rd and 4th pictures are of our Grow Light Garden! We talked about building this on your own with a water mat, some suspended grow lights and maybe a nice flat tupperware container (photos to come when we try building our own). The photo with the plastic wrapped metal poles are our tomato growth pipes (or cucumbers, or peas, or anything else that needs to climb) for our own growing season this year. Lastly, updates of our tower and the trellis at the 6-plex. The trellis photos show another image of a tomato growing option with bamboo sticks. Anything can work for trellis work - some other staff use twine tied to the top of the greenhouse beams although these are not quite as strong.
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about usWe are part of the Employ Ability Skills Program with Challenge Disability Resource Group. We take part in a 12-week program that allows us to learn new skills and foster our interest in growing our own food organically. Archives
August 2017
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