Thank you!

Another successful Bloomin’ Plant Sale is done for the year! We are so grateful to everyone who helped us out. Whether you bought plants, donated plants from your own garden or volunteered your valuable time and energy we are truly thankful for your support.

A big shout out to the local businesses who donated plants for our sale:

• Canadian Tire
• Future Gardens
• Oliver Garden Centre
• Sagebrush Nursery
• Riverside Garden Centre

And especially to Jack at Oliver Daily News for the great publicity.

The Bloomin’ Plant Sale is our main fundraiser to cover the operating costs of the Community Garden. Watch for information next spring for next year’s sale! Think of us when you’re waking up your garden and we’ll gladly take donations of any perennials you’re dividing or extra plants you’ve started. We can’t do it without you!

Happy Gardening!

2013 Bloomin’ Plant Sale

All this sunshine is making me think about my garden. How about you? Join us on Saturday, May 25th from 9 am to 11 am outside the Kiwanis Market in Oliver for our 5th Annual Bloomin’ Plant sale. Come browse our selection of annuals, perennials, vegetables, herbs, bulbs and more.

If you’re digging in your garden before then and have any plants you’d like to donate, please contact us at olivercommunitygarden@yahoo.com and we’ll gladly take them off your hands.

President’s Report 2013

The 2012 growing season was full of successes with some great new ideas on which to build. You could say that it was the first year that we were fully back in business again as functional community garden with the task of moving our garden now complete.

2012 saw the addition of the white lattice on the fence (thanks to Marji Basso) and a wonderful arbor constructed by Juleen McElgunn and Martin Cattermole). The automated irrigation system was installed in the spring by Sam, Mal, Juleen and myself. Then, after a serious weed removal along the fence line, weed barrier was installed with a layer of road gravel over the entire garden area completed by Bob Goloski from New Start Landscaping. I also removed all of the extra bits and pieces that had been placed outside of our allotted area so that we are now entirely contained within the agreed upon space on the property.

The plant sale held in May was well attended and was a great way to introduce the new garden to the community and kick off the growing season. The water-wise workshop Paula Rodriguez de la Vega (ironically, held in the rain just outside the large doors of the Quail’s Nest Arts Center) was informative and relatively well-attended given the weather that day. People had lots of questions and the session went longer because of these discussions. This serves to show how much interest there is with gardening and agriculture within our area for which the Community Garden is poised to be an active resource.

Though the early summer was typically unstable weather-wise, we were blessed with an excellent late summer and fall for growing and the garden boxes did well. Crops this year included squashes (spaghetti and pumpkin), tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, sunflowers and cantaloupe among others. We supplied food to the Oliver Food Bank and the weekly Farm to School Salad Bar Program at Tuc-el-Nuit and Oliver Elementary schools.

Visibility to the public continues to be a struggle as the garden’s profile is not a high as it was at our previous location. This is a situation which was foreseen and acknowledged before entering into an agreement with the Oliver Community Arts Council for the use of our current space. We must continually strive to maintain awareness of our garden within the community through articles in local media, participation in community events, and through establishing connections with other local groups and organizations.

If we can grow our community as we grow our vegetables, we’ll be in for a great year.

Respectfully submitted, April 4, 2012

Luke Whittall

President, Oliver Community Garden Society

AGM 2013

Just a reminder that our Annual General Meeting will be held tonight at 5pm at the Quail’s Nest Arts Centre next to the Community Garden. See you there!

Luke

See how the garden grows

Update on the Gardens

Update on the Oliver Community gardens

This growing year has been very successful so far. It started out quite rainy, and it was a bit scary leaving all of our little plants out in the cold, BUT it paid off and now our gardens are gorgeous. The gardens are located at the Quails Art Gallery just past the Seniors Centre.

It all starts with the educational part of the growing season. Thanks to a grant from CIBC we have a teacher who visits each school including OK Falls Elementary school this year and teaches the students some basics about growing food. The students then walk down to the gardens and plant their veggies in their school’s bed. We must thank all the teachers for their help in making this possible.

This year, we planted all kinds of vegetables: squashes (including spaghetti, and pumpkin), tomatoes, peppers, carrots, beets, cabbage, cucumbers, sunflowers cantaloupe and even marigolds. It is amazing how everything is growing!!! The trick to our success this year is that automatic sprinklers were installed. A big thank you to the irrigation team of Sandra, Luke, Juleen and Mal for all their hard work to make this possible!

The food that is grown at the gardens will be shared by the Oliver Food Bank and the weekly Farm to School Salad Bar Program at Tuc-el-Nuit and Oliver Elementary schools. The harvest will be great this year. It will be fun to keep track of the food that is picked.

The students that are attending the summer art program at the Quail’s Nest Art Centre are getting the opportunity to see more of the growing cycle and help out by keeping the weeds down – if everybody helps it make for less work. They are also making some amazing art projects, some of which will stay in the garden for everyone to enjoy.

Take some time this summer to go down to the gardens and see what is growing.

By Claire Schwartzenberger

Thank you to our Sponsors!

On behalf of the Oliver Community Garden Society I’d like to express my gratitude to all the businesses and people of the Oliver community who supported our Bloomin’ Plant Sale.

A HUGE thank you to:

Alberto’s Decorating Centre
Art Knapp’s Plantland
Buy Low Foods
Communities in Bloom
Communities for Kids
Future Gardens
Green Tea Hawaii
Heirloom Garden Club
New Start Landscaping
Oliver Daily News
Sagebrush Nurseries
Sensen Farms
South Valley Sales
Super Valu
The Gala Vanters
The Oliver Ambassadors, The Oliver Chronicle
The Oliver Community Arts Council
TRU Building Centre
Tulips in Bloom
Tussie Mussies
V-Line Construction

Without your support, we could never make an event like this happen.

Thank you also to all the people who donated plants to the sale. We had an amazing selection and any unsold plants are being used to support our school program and beautify the gardens and the Art Centre property.

We had a great turnout and it was wonderful to see so many people come to support the Community Garden and the Oliver Ambassador program. Congratulations to all the winners of our Loonie Auction.

Hope to see you all next year!