Spring 2019 – Garden Kick-off!

Our Community Garden is off to a great start! The kickoff for the spring planting season took place on Friday, January 18th in Cockrell Hall at BAUUC. The dinner and planning meeting was attended by thirteen gardeners, six of whom are church members. We’re delighted to have members from our community, especially our newest members from Nine Waves Grove. Jane and David Malin suggested several plants that they have grown with good results. Siok Hong, who prepared several vegetables from her plot, also shared growing tips. The January workday, held the next day, was attended by 8 hardy gardeners, who braved the cold and windy weather.

The next workday is on Saturday, February 16th. Volunteers and visitors are always welcome. Our donation beds can always use weeding and harvesting. We proudly share our vegetables with ICM Food Bank. For questions or comments, please contact Nathan: nveatch@gmail.com

Enjoy pictures from our Kick Off potluck and January work day!

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Photos & Blog post by Nathan

3rd Annual Garden Potluck

The Third Annual BAUUC Community Garden Potluck was held on Saturday, August 18th. Twenty-four gardeners and guests from BAUUC and Bronson Street Community Gardens attended. Nancy Saint, President of the Clear Lake Chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas, shared her expertise on the importance of native plants and their use in area landscaping.

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Veritable FEAST!

We enjoyed a veritable feast including several delicious salads, pickled okra, penne pasta with pesto and bruschetta with tomatoes. Most of the dishes featured vegetables grown in our gardens. We finished the meal with several desserts and Siok Hong Chen-Sabot’s creative “vegetable” cake again this year!

Siok Hong Cake

Everyone went home with a door prize, including our church honey and Siok Hong’s salsa made from Bruce Meltzer’s tomatoes. The Share Table offered seeds, plants and worms. It was a successful and enjoyable potluck and we look forward to our fourth one next year.

A special thanks to Patrick Ferrell and Paul Dum for mowing our garden. It looks great!

Our next workday will be on September 15 from 8:30 ‘til 11. Come and join us.

Post & Photos by: Nathan Veatch, Garden Administrator and Siok Hong Chen-Sabot

Please enjoy our photos!!

 

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Sharon Juntunen of Bronson St. Community Garden donated a mason bee hotel for the Share Table. Mason bees are native bees that pollinate many fruits and vegetables.

 

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Siok Hong donated her homemade salsa to the Door Prize Table.

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Nancy Saint, President NPSOT

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The native ground-cover, Frog Fruit, can be found near the tractor shed. Keep it moist.

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BAUUC Garden News for April & May 2018

Our Community Garden staffed a booth at the Grand Opening of Exploration Green on Saturday, April 28th. The booth was staffed by Siok Hong Chen-Baden, David Baden, Bruce Meltzer, Nathan Veatch and Don Rhorer. Instructions on tomato cultivation, garden applications, yard-long beans, 20 butterfly weed plants, packets of arugula seeds, and earthworms (for gardens not fishing) were handed out. We had a steady stream of visitors come by our booth and 31 signed up for more information. We welcome newcomers Susan and Robert Strahan. They’re sharing a donation bed and have an experimental watermelon patch in the works. So far this spring, we have donated a total of 34 lbs. of produce to the ICM Food Bank.

Our community garden is undergoing a period of revitalization. We are in need of volunteers to help water our extended donation beds. If you can volunteer one morning or evening a week to water, please let Nathan know. If we can get 2 teams, one on Tuesday or Wednesday, and one on Saturday or Sunday, it would help immensely. Please email Nathan for more detail at: nveatch@swbell.net

Nathan Veatch, Garden Administrator

Working in the Garden

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March 2018 – Garden work day

On March 17th, George Becker, Siok Hong Chen-Baden, Bruce Meltzer, Beatriz Perez-Sweeney, Jane and David Malin, and Nathan Veatch had a productive morning working in our spring gardens. Superman George Becker had previously tilled several unused rows and continued the job by tilling two abandoned large plots. One of these beds will be used as a donation bed. Several small beds are also available for adoption by new gardeners. Red and yellow cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, zucchini and yellow squash, okra, zinnias, sunflowers and milkweed were planted. We have several beds dedicated to butterfly habitat and herbs for a farmers’ market. Three young bunnies were relocated from one of the beds to a safer area. Hopefully their mom will find them!

Siok Hong took 5 lbs of produce to the ICM Food Bank on March 19. (See the photo below.)

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Saturday, April. 21 is our next Garden Workday (the third Saturday of the month). Volunteers are always welcome. Come help and learn how to garden!

Blog post & photos by Nathan

Our gardeners hard at work!

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Garden News & Work Day 2/17

Greetings Gardeners!
Our next Community Garden Workday is Saturday, February 17 from 8:30 to 11:00am. In addition, the annual spring Fruit Tree and Tomato Sale will be held on Saturday, February 24, from 9:00am to 1:00pm at the Pasadena Fairgrounds – 7600 Red Bluff Rd., Pasadena.
Our BAUUC Community Garden is next to the parking lot across the road from the church.Volunteers are always welcome. For questions or comments, contact Nathan Veatch at nveatch@swbell.net.
See you there!
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Monarch Butterfly

Garden Work Day – 1/20/18

BAUUC Community Garden News: Looking back and looking ahead: Put AUGUST 18 on your calendars for our next garden Potluck. In 2017, our garden had a good year with a great potluck in August featuring a wide variety of dishes, an interesting speaker from Urban Harvest and door prizes. Our gardeners are not only growing some nice veggies but also butterfly attractors and Stevia. Liam (Beatriz’s son) and his friend are growing herbs for a local farmer’s market. Other faithful gardeners this past year were Vera, Siok Hong, Deandra, George B, Bruce M, Mike Wehrman, Jane and David, and Nathan and Jill. Thanks to all these gardeners for all the hard work they do in their beds and our donation beds. We will be sharing our cabbage and broccoli with the ICM Food Bank in League City again this winter. We welcome newcomers, Jeramy, Michelle and their son, to our gardening family!

Saturday, Feb. 17 is our next Garden Workday. Volunteers are always welcome. Come help and learn. Check out the photos on our blog: https://bauucgarden.org or our Facebook page.

Post by Nathan

December 16th Work Day

BAUUC Community Garden News:Liam and Beatriz Perez-Sweeney, Vera Tosto, Siok Hong Chen-Baden, and Deandra Newcomb enjoyed a cup of cocoa or coffee at the December 16 workday. Vera, Nathan Veatch, George Becker, Bruce Meltzer, Jane and David Malin and Siok Hong tilled and planted a raised bed. Siok Hong also shared microgreens with us. Thanks to all the gardeners for all the work they do in our donation beds. We will be sharing the produce and grapefruit with the ICM Food Bank in League City.

Please join us on Saturday, Jan. 20th for our next Garden Workday. Volunteers are always welcome. Come help, and learn. Questions and/or comments contact me at nveatch@swbell.net

Thanks,

Nathan

Garden News for December 2017

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BAUUC Community Garden News: Jane and David have converted their raised beds from decaying wooden sides to concrete blocks. No more rotted boards or ants! They ordered more soil on the November 18 workday to fill their larger beds. A donation bed was tilled and two varieties of lettuce and broccoli were planted by Siok Hong, George, Jill and Nathan. The battle with the deep grass roots was finally won! George’s zinnias and Siok Hong’s butterfly weed are attracting several kinds of butterflies and other insects. Be sure to walk through the garden after church on the next sunny day. Siok Hong is also harvesting sweet potatoes that Urban Harvest shared with us early last spring. Wow!

Raised bed conversion from wood to bricks

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Some work day pictures!

 

 

Next garden work day is Saturday, December 16th from 9am – 11:00am. Join us for a cup of cocoa!


Thanksgiving Sweet Potatoes from BAUUC Community Garden – News

Quotes from our gardeners:

The day before Thanksgiving, we harvested several buckets of sweet potatoes from the garden. David and I took home six – two huge monsters and four others. We decided to cook them for the BAUUC Thanksgiving potluck. I found a recipe for oven-roasted sweet potato wedges (400° for 30 minutes), and David invented his own basting sauce of margarine, maple syrup and low sodium soy sauce. The only hard part was cutting those hard sweet potatoes into wedges. We dug out our electric knife for that. The results were sweet and delicious wedges. The sauce lent some moist sweetness that blended right in. They were all gone by the end of the potluck.- Jane

Jane, that is so awesome – I thoroughly enjoyed mine – gave some to Bruce M. I spiralized and baked them, and also boiled them. Also, I found that sweet potato leaves are edible. I stir-fried them with just some salt and garlic and they tasted like spinach. I like the fact that I am eating fresh organic greens. Cheers, Ms. Siok Hong

Post & Photos by Nathan

 

 

 

Garden Workday – 11/18/17

Hello Gardeners!

Tomorrow (11/18/17) is our next Garden Workday from 8:30 til 11:00am. We will be cleaning out beds and planting fall gardens. We have 15 packets of seeds from Urban Harvest if you wish to plant some. Packets include spinach, carrots, pea, 2 lettuces, 2 radishes, 2 beets, onion, mustard greens, radicchio, corn salad (greens), cauliflower, and turnips.

See you there!

Garden Work Day – 9/16/2017

Community Garden News:

Gardeners and volunteers, Saturday, Sept. 16, is our next Garden Workday from 8:30am until 11:00am. We will be cleaning out beds and preparing for fall gardens. If you missed the second annual Garden Potluck luncheon, you missed a delicious lunch, useful door prizes and Terry Garner of Urban Harvest who shared his thoughts on how to be a better gardener. We were delighted to have Julie Lambert, our former Dir. of Lifespan Religious Education and the founder of our Community garden as an honored guest! Jane Malin won the grand prize, a rain barrel system! Contact me at nveatch@swbell.net  with your questions and/or comments.

Blog post by: Nathan Veatch