Stephanie's Garden

Pictures

Stephanie Planting Weeding

Intern Profile

Two of my personal goals for working at the Dallas Youth Garden this summer are: Help serve my community, and there needs, as well as finding the best way to grow food every year for family's in need.

Two things I hope to learn for working at the Dallas Youth Garden are: Better ways to grow a garden, and how to keep the bugs from eating the produce with out using a harmful spray.

I think my biggest challenge will be: working in the heat.

My favorite vegetable is: I do not have a favorite vegetable.

My least favorite garden task is: Dealing with the hot weather.

My most favorite garden task is: Growing as much food as I can to help family's.

I think a leader is: Some one who has the ability to make the best decision in a short amount of time, and takes the time to listen to other voices, concerns, and thoughts.

My worst leadership skill or trait is: I have a problem with things not always working out they way I would like.

My best leadership skill or trait is: I will always make time to listen to what anyone else has to say.

Garden Plan:

Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers Planted (in order)

1. Sweet peppers, Cabbage, Onion, Carrots, Cucumber, Broccoli, Squash, Peppers.

2. Basil

3. Sunflowers, Marigolds.

My favorite plant to plant was: Squash.

My lease favorite plan to plant was: Onions.

I think my plan worked because: I have just enough room for each plant to grow into a good size, and the tarp I am using will attract the heat to the plants helping them grow.

Garden Log:

May 16 - Started to plant some of my garden, with my first row being cabbage.

May 23 - Continued Planting.

May 29- Planted two rows of squash.

June 2- Got all of my plants in.

June 11- Watered my garden, and I have my tomato coming in as well as some squash showing.

June 20- I have mulched over half of my garden and replanted some squash because my cucumbers did not come up, except for one plant.

June 27- I put fish fertilizer down for my plants to have a better growth, finished putting down mulch on my garden, weeded my garden as well.

July 7- I picked two pounds of summer squash, and a half of a pound of basil, in all and I was able to finish weeding my garden.

July 18- On the 11th I picked three pounds of summer squash, the 14th I picked 9.5 pounds of green onions, and 1.5 pounds of lettuce.

July 21-23 Picked 10.5 pounds of lettuce, 12 pounds of onions, and did weeding.

August 5- 8 pounds of onions, three pounds of sweet peppers, 11 pounds of summer squash, and 4.5 pounds of basil.

Augus 13 - A total amount of 3 lbs summer crook neck squash, 1.5 pounds of tomatoes, and 2 pounds of hot peppers.

August 18- The tomato plants that I planted produced about 34 pounds of tomatoes.

August 27 - I did not have all that much produce but I did some extra watering.

September 1- I had a total of 43 lbs of tomatoes in my garden alone.

September 8- 1 pound of broccoli, 1 pound of sweet peppers, a half of pound of summer squash, and a total of 26 pounds of tomatoes.

Leadership Projects:

Value of my produce

Problem: We donate lots of food to the Willamette valley food assistance program. It is sometimes hard to calculate the value of the food we deliver.

Solution: One way to calculate the value is figure out how much time was spent to produce the food. Another way to calculate the value is to compare how much it would cost if this food was purchased at the grocery store like Safeway.

Calculation: At Safeway last week heirloom tomatoes cost $5/pound. I harvested 124.5 pounds of tomatoes. The value of the tomatoes if they were purchased was $622.50. I also harvested 54 pounds of green onions. They cost $00.79 for green onions per pound and the total cost at Safeway would be $42.66.

Communication: I shared this information with other garden folks.

Leadership: Communicate with other folks,

Mulch Comparison

Problem: We need to determine what kind of mulch plastic or paper is better.

Solution: My first leadership project is comparing different mulches,

Test: I have put down black plastic on half of my garden with straw on top to see if it works better than the control which is putting news paper down around the plants and straw on top of the paper so the weeds have a harder time coming up and stealing the nutrients needed for your plants.

Document: June 7, 2015 I had one pound of basil and two pounds of summer squash.

Communication: I have noticed I have way better production on the plastic side than the news paper side of mulch.

Leadership: (What leadership skills/traits) will this project help you with)

A Thank you

Problem: We need donations and support for the Dallas Youth Garden.

Solution: Had an open house to show people what we do and had a donation bucket.

Test: Seeing which ways work best to gain support. Such as the Master Gardeners.

Document: At the Polk County Fair the Dallas Youth Garden inters took turns through out the day selling peaches that were donated to us to help raise money.

Communication: We recently had a field trip where we went to see the Willamette Valley food organization. We saw how they put out the produce that we grew, and other foods donated to them would be picked up from family's.

Leadership: I wrote a thank you note to those who have supported the Dallas Youth gardens.