The PGPIRG Learning garden is situated in between the Keyoh residence and the Bioenergy plant.  The garden space features a Zen garden with rock sculptures, raised beds, a cob greenhouse, a garden compost bin, and research beds. We grow a whole range of food crops from Mustard to beets and are the home to many different berry bushes. If you need a place to have your morning coffee, eat lunch, play music, learn about gardening, or just hang out to watch the birds the PGPIRG garden is the place for you. If you are curious about where your food comes from and would like to harvest some for yourself please contact PGPIRG at 960-7474, pgpirg@unbc.ca or stop by the office (Rm 6-342).

April Haubold
PGPIRG Summer Garden and Compost Coordinator

A view of the garden mid-summer, 2011.

This insect was caught in our green house. Initially I thought it was a bumblebee that was trapped. I have tried to catch them before and it often results in a lot of running around and no saving bumble bees so I left it alone. Eventually it must have got out but it was in rough shape and I found it in one of our garden beds. I caught it very easily. I am not sure what it is. I thought it was a hawk moth but now I am not so sure. Anyone know what this is?

After some time and some dry weather our compost will dry out. We try to mix the wet piles with the dry piles but eventually you just have a bunch of dry piles. So today we combined two of the smaller dry piles while watering and mixing them together. Another bin also got watered. One of the Facilities guys kindly brought over their huge watering tank full of water. We must have had 500 liters of water and it wasn’t quite enough so next time I think we will get the full tank.

Some of our Tomatoes appear to have some leaf curl. I thought it might be dreaded leaf curl virus but now I am not so sure.

http://www.avrdc.org/LC/tomato/tylcv.html

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_causes_leaf_curl_on_tomato_plants

Does anyone know what might be happening to our tomatoes and what we could do to help them?

Here is another garden bed and path building session. The dimensions of the bed are 3 ft * 12 ft we use 12’ 2”x12” screwed together with 3” #8 wood screws. Cut the sod out in the shape of the bed and then line the paths and any part of the bed where weeds are still present with cardboard. Then place the pre-made garden bed frame on top of the cardboard so there is overlap of the bed and the path. Then  fill the bed with soil and the path with bark mulch.

One of the big projects this year is the mulching of paths between all of the garden beds through out the site. It is a three step process. First you pull up all the weeds between the paths. Especially along the borders of the garden beds.

Once that has been completed cover all of the path with cardboard or a couple sheets of thick landscaping paper. Then top off with 2 inches of bark mulch.

Here is a finished Path.

How to build the most amazing Pea fence the world has ever seen. I used 1/2 inch irrigation piping. the three support lengths are 7 feet and the cross beam comes in at 12 feet with the middle support connecting at the 6 ft midway point. The supports are buried about 3 inches into the ground and then reinforced with the pictured metal brackets. The netting comes in twelve foot lengths which is perfect for our beds. I threaded the tubing through the netting so it is very sturdy. I staked the bottom of the net into the bed.

I thought she had died!

Plants have bloomed and continue to be blooming. Come out and see for yourself!

Bagged compost for sale! Just head on up to the garden site besides Keyoh residence up here at UNBC. Self serve, just grab the bag and drop the money in the slot on the cobb house door!