June 2020 E-Newsletter
I grow plants for many reasons: to please my eye or to please my soul, to challenge the elements or to challenge my patience, for novelty or for nostalgia, but mostly for the joy in seeing them grow. – David Hobson
Featured Instagram Photo of the Month: A small mulberry tree loaded with fruit.
Upcoming Garden Events:
Please keep an eye on the OVF Calendar for updates as to when OVF group events are set to resume.
Useful info:
- I wrote a draft of this newsletter on last Friday night. It talked about seasons changing and time moving at once both rapidly and excruciatingly slow. It talked about changes in the garden landscape and gardeners returning after a hiatus. It talked about many things that now seem very small and trite. These are difficult times: for some more than others. For many, times were never easy and the lockdown is only making matters worse. In a world of have and have nots, there are very few equalizers. We should have good public schools, well-funded libraries, public parks and recreation located in every neighborhood. Affordable community gardens are another one of those equalizers. For those of us not fortunate enough to own land, community gardens give us a place to get our hands dirty, to grow our own food and to establish a community and hopefully, to feel safe. I am thankful to have Ocean View Farms as part of my world and all of you who make it what it is. Everyone deserves to have food, everyone deserves to have shelter, everyone deserves to have an education and everyone deserves to feel safe. I hope for peace now but even more, I hope for change.
- Life is challenging at the moment but small victories can still be found. Plant something and watch it grow. Share your harvest with a friend or a stranger. June tends to be a mild enough month that you can still safely plant in the ground without fear that your seedlings are going to burn up. Planting earlier in the month is better than later. Plants love the longer day lengths of June. If you planted your summer crops in early spring, think about some of your favorites and consider putting in a second round of plants now that can replace your original plants once they are spent. Cucumbers, tomatoes and summer squash are all good candidates for succession planting. Heat loving plants like peppers, eggplants, pumpkin and watermelon do great when started in June. That is to say, as great as a heat loving plants tend to do in our milder summers.
- It can be hard to keep on top of the summer harvest once it hits its stride, so make sure that any weeding or other plot maintenance you need to do gets done now. Lastly, if you’re looking for inspiration of things to plant this month, here is a link to the Gardening in LA Blog.
OVF Announcements:
Plot Maintenance and Community Service Requirements
This is a reminder that all plots need to be weeded and all paths need to be weeded and mulched by June 14th. If there are health-related reasons why you are not able to complete this task by the deadline, please reach out to your phase rep as soon as possible. Due to continuing restrictions on workdays, garden members will only be required to work six community service hours (per plot) this year instead of the usual twelve. Three of those hours will need to be completed by August 30th. Gardeners can contact Katie Taylor for beautification assignments or their phase rep for more information about Garden Angel work.
You can find all COVID-19 related updates on the Ocean View Farms Website.
Give Back
Help alleviate food insecurity by donating some of your harvest through the OVF Donates program. OVF donates accepts donations from members' gardens and Independent Projects every Sunday from 3-5 at gate IV (top of phase II). Donations of flowers are also accepted. If you would like to help sort and deliver the donations please reach out to Alicia Bacon.
We leave you with this stunning sunset photo submitted by Nora Dvosin.
As always: we want to hear from you! Send us an email, reach out on Facebook, or tag us on Instagram @oceanviewfarms.
That’s all for now. Happy gardening!