Hello Racine Urban Gardeners:

I have a greenhouse full of seed starting trays and pots that I'd like to clear out of there. If anyone is interested in some or all, please email me at spraguejennifer@sbcglobal.net. Do not buy any supplies until you check these out. FREE

Hello everyone,

   My name is Linea Anthony and I know how excited people are about this wonderful group you have started here in Racine. I am reaching out to your group because I have a good sized plot of land on Washington Ave. in Uptown where the Isaiah Zagar murals are.

   Some of you may have noticed a man (my husband) digging a large hole on the lot during the summer months. This will, hopefully, become a pond next year.

   While I believe that your group's main emphasis is on food production ( we are finishing a good sized greenhouse on this same piece of property around the back of my store's building to try straw bale gardening for that purpose) what we are trying to do on the street side is establish an Urban Native Habitat Garden.

   What we don't have is the expertise to plan out the space the way it deserves. Without a good plan there is nothing.  One has to know their limitations.

   A microcosm like this needs a good solid layout to develop successfully over the years. It would be wonderful if the entire site could eventually include porous pavement and a roof garden as well. All this to be a real example of what is possible to do with an urban property.

   The other half of the goal is to have an environmental easement put on the property to keep it as a place of solace and teaching (and of course art ) for generations to come.

   If anyone knows of someone willing and qualified to take on a task like this and be open to creative ways of being remunerated for their time - please - come by my store:

          Racine Merchandise Mart, 1341 Washington Ave., W-F 11 -5 and SAT. 12 - 5.

          Or call: WK 262-898-1514 Cell 414-807-4467 .

Thank you so much for any help and/or suggestions.

Linea

Hello my friends/Potato Gardeners,

I'm planning a meeting of the gardeners who participated with the Kenosha Potato Project ... or are interested to participate in the future.

A Tuesday night, at the Kenosha Northside Library, 6:30pm either November 10th or November 24th

- which date would work best for you?

- if you can attend, how many people?  (to organize refreshments)

Purpose of the meeting:

- show your nicest tubers

- share the knowledge

- plan for next year

This message goes to almost 80 gardeners ... I appreciate you taking the time to respond one way or the other, so we can organize the room.  Please RSVP with name and phone number to seedsaver@curzio.com

Since attendance at Friday's meeting was minimal, possibly due to the weather, here are some key findings. The meeting was very interesting. One of our weaknesses was addressed when Racine/Kenosha Community Action Project basically told us that they are willing and able to insure each landowner donating use of their site for a garden project against potential lawsuits from users of that garden site. While this does not shield RUGN from the potential suit, it does protect the landowner from liability, and it still might be possible to protect RUGN. CAP's main concern was that someone else manage the acceptance of land donations and subsequent "rentals" by gardeners and the management of them. They also are more than willing to provide harvesting on the sites to provide for local food pantries, as they are already doing so at other functional sites.

I am hoping that we can manage most of this renting/leasing and application documentation through the internet to save actual man(woman)-hours, so we might consider trying to find a professional web developer willing to donate time to perfect the online application/approval process.....

I suggest we basically copy the Milwaukee Urban Garden format for potential land users, and try to imitate what we saw on an Ohio Urban Garden website for site location and selection (unfortunately right now I don't remember the site-I'll have to look it up and get back on this)....   

With the liability covered, we then need to consider tool rentals (free, but signed out) for each location, how to secure each site, if needed, maybe have signs/posters at each site location, etc....

I still think it would be nice to take advantage of that 5 acre site that was offered by the interstate possibly for a fall crop if only for the potential advertising effect it could have for our group...

And, we still need to decide upon the legal status of our group...club? LLC? non-profit? association?

RUGN has scheduled a tour of Growing Power for Sunday, August 16 at 1:00 pm.  If you would like to attend, bring $7 to D.P. Wigley to register.  Their number is 262-633-8239.  Space is limited.  There will be carpooling to the site.  RUGN looks forward to seeing a great turn out for this wonderful opportunity.  

Dear Potato Gardener:

Please send me an email to seedsaver@curzio.com

if you are interested to enter your name in my list of potato gardeners

(if you are planning to grow garden potatoes now or in the future).

Every year I send out up-dates to remind you about some record keeping

tasks and ensuring our reference sources are up-dated and/or corrected.

My first update was sent in early May to remind you to keep track of the

vine emergence date.

The second update deals with vine length (1) and flowers (2), eventually

TPS - seed pods (3) + early tuber development (4).

I truly appreciate your time to keep records and report them back. Please

help me to keep the flow of information organized as follows:

(1) I'm interested to organize a list of potato cultivars with long and

very long vine length ... especially if you detect shallow tuber set.

[shallow tuber set or opportunistic vines - tubers are set through the

growing season, rather than just deep tuber setting]

This list of cultivar will be added to this Planting Tips page.

Scroll down to the bottom and you will understand how we all shall benefit

of this record keeping.

www.curzio.com/N/Planting_Garden_Potato_in_Kenosha.htm

(2) Not all cultivars develop flowers [depending on soil quality

and day length ... and who knows what other issues]

Please don't tell me! But report back to our comprehensive database on

www.davesgarden.com   + click on Guides and Info + PlantFiles + Potatoes

[you have to sign-up to add data ... it's free]

Find your cultivars, check the reported bloom color is correct.

You may add a picture of the bloom and also add your ZIP code.

Finally you can post a comment to report if the bloom develops into fruit.

(3) if your flowers turn into fruit (TPS) I would like to add this info

to this page www.curzio.com/N/Potato_starting_from_seed.htm

My Potato Gardener network is global.

I only list TPS harvested in Southeastern Wisconsin.

But if you harvest TPS ... you can trade it on www.davesgarden.com

(4) July 4th is the traditional date to go steal spuds!

Removing tubers without pulling the vines is a special treat for the

holiday meal. If you are able to find and "steal" tubers, your

variety should be already listed in my "Early category"

Check listing at the bottom of www.curzio.com/N/PotatoProject.htm

Sometimes the check mark "X" is missing, because we don't know ...

or it's by error placed in the "late" column.

If you can steal tubers by July 4th ... I would like to mention it in the

catalog web page. If you steal tubers in July - early August, make sure

the variety is listed as "Early" on my web page and

on www.davesgarden.com the maturity date should be noted as 71 - 90 days

[the number of days are counted from vine emergence]

Maturity date for potato - this is a quite confusing topic - it is almost

impossible to predict when vines emerge after tubers are planted. The

tuber is self-regulated and will grow vines depending on soil temps.

Therefore you can plant by mid March and wait 6 - 8 weeks to see a vine

emerge, while if you plant in mid June, whitin 4 weeks you may have

flowers on the vines.

Flower buds are one sign to alert you that small tubers may be available

to steal. That can be as short as 40 days ... depending on the variety

and the time of planting.

Thank you for your time!!! ... and happy gardening! Curzio :O)

PS Please don't feel compelled to respond or participate in the data reporting.

      This message goes to hundreds of potato gardeners ... but your

participation is always welcome.

We will have workers from the green jobs grant available starting July 6 for community garden work.  The workers will be based at Park High School and will travel to different garden locations in Racine.  If you have not already been in touch with me, but would like to request the workers visit your garden for general maintenance or a project, please message me.

I have a variety of organic native and mediterranean medicinal herbs available as seedlings, root cutting, or runners. 

Calendula, Borage, St. John's Wort, Hyssop, Peppermint, Spearmint, Motherwort, Mugwort, White Yarrow, Evening Primrose, Lavender, Lemon Balm, Mullien

If you would like to add any of these plants to your garden please send a message to my inbox.

Happy Planting!

Carina

I would like to volunteer a couple of hours a week at a garden in exchange for someone teaching me the in's and out's of organic gardening.