Sunshine Community Gardens

1 July, 2021

www.sunshinecommunitygardens.org

Gardener's Picture page

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In this Issue:

• News from SCG Board: Service Hours for 2021 Combined
• Photo: Veggie Face by Kerry Drake
• June's Amazing Micah 6 Totals
• Mushroom Basket Tomato: Report by Gail Reese
• New Weekly Weeder Co-Editor
• Reminder from SCG Board: Outside Trash in Dumpster
• Needed Service Hour Tasks

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Update on Service Hours for 2021

The SCG Board decided to combine the 2021 spring and fall service hours, as it did in 2020. Many gardeners are accustomed to volunteering in the spring for the Plant Sale, and this was not an option this year. This will likely be the last time that spring and fall service hours will be combined for the year because of the pandemic.

Gardeners will not be billed for any unworked spring service hours, but those hours will be carried over and added to the gardener's fall hours. For example, a full plot gardener with 2 unworked regular spring hours will need to work 10 regular hours (8 normal fall hours + 2 carried over) plus 1 TSBVI hour by end of the Fall season. Gardeners with any unworked hours for the combined spring and fall seasons will be billed for those unworked hours at the end of the fall season. The bill for 2021 unworked hours and 2022 annual dues will be sent by email in January 2022.

Many thanks to all the gardeners who have already worked their spring 2021 service hours, and be sure to record them in the Virtual Green Binder on Sunshine's website. The Virtual Green Binder for Fall 2021 hours is also available on the website now. Gardeners with unworked spring service hours or those who want to get started on fall service hours please see the list of tasks at the end of this week's Weeder.

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Micah 6 Update: June's Amazing Totals

Walter Kuhl reports that June was an extremely bountiful month for the Micah 6 food pantry thanks to all the Sunshine gardeners who shared their harvest and pantry items. Over 64% of the produce Sunshine donated in the first half of 2021 came from gardeners in June!

June Donations:

• Produce - 1283 pounds
• Dry goods (canned food, dry beans, rice, ect...) - 61 pounds

Year to Date:

• Produce - 1999.75 pounds
• Dry goods - 151 pounds

Gardeners who want to donate produce or dry goods to the food pantry may place the items in either the refrigerator or the cool room in the trailer. There are paper and plastic sacks in the cool room if needed. People who prefer not to enter the trailer may place donations in the M6 cooler on the front porch of the trailer and a volunteer will take them inside. Deliveries to the food pantry are currently twice a week -- Thursday afternoon and early Saturday morning. Thank you so much for your generosity! It is very appreciated.

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Tomato Report: Mushroom Basket Tomato

Tomatoes grown and photographed by Gail Reese

Since we had no tomato tasting event this year due to the pandemic, gardeners have been asked to share their favorite tomatoes or new finds here in the Weeder. This week Gail Reese reports on a tomato she grew for the first time at Sunshine.

Mushroom Basket Tomato from Baker Seeds

I planted these from seed around New Year's under grow lights at home and put them in the garden around the first week of March. They have been producing during the month of June. They are big and beautiful and very much like the Costaluto type heavily-ribbed tomatoes from Italy, but these are of Russian origin. They ripen from corally pink yellow into a deep red and are quite lovely, although sometimes you lose some meat due to the sizable core. Also, if a crease is very deep there may be some waste if a bug gets inside. The fruit are really large and the first one I picked was almost three tomatoes in one at the bottom of the plant. The top picture has a large Juliet included to judge size of these lovlies. I originally thought these tomatoes were determinant but read a few reviews that said they were quite large plants. The plants are five to seven feet and act like a really tall indeterminate plant. We had so much rain in late spring it may have diluted the flavor but they are quite good. This is my first time growing this variety.

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The Weekly Weeder has a new Co-Editor

Preparing the Weeder every week is a big task, one that Editor Holly Gilman has been tackling solo for a long while. Starting this week she will have a co-editor, Maria Beach, to share the work. If you have news, photos, announcements, or recipes to share please email them to both Holly and Maria.

Maria Beach has been a Sunshine Gardener since the late 1990s. She has designed and painted some of the signs that are in the garden, like the one in the TSBVI Garden. With degrees in theatre, art, and education, Maria hopes to tweak the Weekly Weeder's design to make it easier to navigate and a bit more aesthetically interesting. She is also an accomplished home cook and a fan of the PBS show America's Test Kitchen, and she plans to start a new feature for the Weeder once a month or so--"Sunshine's Test Kitchen," where she will test a few similar recipes using seasonal produce and share the best version. If this is successful she would love for other gardener/cooks to contribute the results of their kitchen experiments, too.

Maria also hopes that more gardeners will submit newsletter content of all kinds to the Weeder and to Sunshine's social media. She would like to work with the SCG Social Media Team to have more overlap and reciprocity between the Weeder and Sunshine's Facebook page, too, since some articles and photos can be interesting and useful to community members who do not garden here. Sunshine Gardeners are a living library of gardening wisdom, community knowledge, and expertise in cooking with fresh seasonal food. Share your insights and creativity with other gardeners and the wider Central Texas community!

Please submit weekly weeder articles, photos, and recipes by Wednesday to both Co-Editors:
Holly Gilman at hollyjgilman@gmail.com and
Maria Beach at dr.maria.beach@gmail.com

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Reminder from the Board:

No Outside Trash in Sunshine Dumpster

Photos by Steve Camp

On the morning of Wednesday June 30, a gardener discovered a large bag of trash from someone's home or vehicle in the dumpster at Sunshine. Trash generated outside the garden is not permitted in the dumpster. Please review the signs with the rules for the dumpster and abide by them. If someone is observed dumping trash at Sunshine who is not a gardener please speak with them, or, if you are uncomfortable doing so, take a picture of the individual and show it to a member of the SCG Board.

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Needed Service Hour Tasks - June 30, 2021

To help keep gardeners aware of wha service hour tasks are needed, an attempt will be made to keep this list current.

Priority (Tasks specifically needed)

1. Weeding and putting down wood chips on north side of the garden on right as drive into Sunshine (under desert willow).
2. Cleaning curb gutter on 49th St. (TSBVI) (Remove bermudagrass which has grown up in gutter - particularly on east end.)
3. Weeding inside south greenhouse
4. Removing hackberries fence line along 49th St. and Sunshine Dr. (TSBVI) (Try to remove as deep below ground as possible.) Weeding inside greenhouses.
5. Digging up khaki weed. (TSBVI) (Board has authorized to count as TSBVI hours)
6. Maintaining common paths.

TSBVI

1. Removing hackberries and Johnson grass growing in cyclone fence around Sunshine. (Please try to dig out as much of the roots as possible. Hackberries should be cut off as deep below ground level as possible.)
2. Cleaning street curb gutters of dirt and debris build up. (At places in the curb gutter along Sunshine Dr. and 49th St., soil and debris has built has up and grass beginning to grow. Scrape off with shovel and put in wheelbarrow. If debris is gravel can be put in low places in parking lot. Otherwise, put in dumpster.)
3. Weeding granite paths in raised bed area and edging border. (Try to get out roots - particularly the bermudagrass along west side by garden plots.)
4. Weeding paths in TSBVI garden and wood chip areas on west side. (This is normally needed. Try to get out roots. Be sure to smooth out paths after weeding to facilitate TSBVI students moving around garden.)
5. Mowing between fence and street along 49th St. and Sunshine Dr. along and 10' inside fence. (Frequent mowing will be needed this time of year.)
6. Picking up trash in compost area and along fence lines.

Regular

1. Mowing (Please check area around trailer and greenhouses. Frequent mowing will be needed this time of year.)
2. Maintaining common paths. (Gardeners are required to maintain a 2' strip of common paths adjacent to their plot.)
3. Mowing and cleaning up overgrown/messy areas in common areas.

Note: TSBVI hour tasks can also count as regular hours.

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Weeder Content

Please submit weekly weeder articles, photos, and recipes by Wednesday to both Co-Editors:
Holly Gilman at hollyjgilman@gmail.com and
Maria Beach at dr.maria.beach@gmail.com

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