[Garden] Spanish speaker needed. Also, Jack Frost paid us a visit.

[gcmichal]

Dear Jason and Gardeners,
Cuba
I have a good contact in Havana.  her name is Susan Hurlich, and can  
be reached at delfines at enet.cu or at 537 833-8971  Cuban bureaucracy  
can be truly Byzantine in its complexity, so some lead time is  
desirable.  Susan is also incredibly busy.  She should be able to  
line up a visit and contacts with a community garden.  If she does do  
so, I suggest bringing her a gift of a big bag of preserved ginger,  
which she loves, as well as something appropriate for the community  
garden there.  Susan would be able to provide good suggestions (it  
could be something as basic as trowels or other small garden tools,  
inner tubes for bicycles, or baseballs for the kids - all of which  
are critical shortages).  Perhaps we could take a group picture to  
send along. I'd be willing to contact Susan if you wish.

Frost
On sunday Paul and I planted the tomatoes and peppers that I raised  
at home and had hardened off over the last two weeks.  The forecast  
was lows of 4 degrees and 6 degrees for Sunday and Monday nights.   
But when I went to water the plants this morning I found that there  
had been frost, probably on Sunday nights.  Over two- thirds of the  
emerging beans have been killed, about a third of the pepper plants,  
and a good number of the tomatoes.  I suggest leaving the tomatoes  
for a few days and seeing if there is any recovery, since some appear  
only partially damaged.  There were three varieties of peppers -  
there seems to have been a differential response of them to the  
frost. I think the cold air slid down from the lawn above and  
collected in  the garden.  It is unusual for the weather forecast to  
be so wrong.  If it had been for only two degrees or "risk of frost",  
we would have delayed planting or covered them for the night.

The beans will need replanting.  Could the person with the seed put a  
replacement quantity of bean seeds in to soak overnight for planting  
tomorrow? That speeds up their germination by several days.  I think  
Ian and Candace have lots of tomatoes and pepper seedlings on hand.

The mesclun is coming along well, but the plants are very jammed and  
will quickly start suffering from crowding.  One possibility is to  
tease apart some of the clumps of seedlings and replant them an inch  
or so apart.

- Greg Michalenko
On May 22, 2007, at 10:48 AM, J. Rochon wrote:

> Gardeners,
>                 One of  my co-workers is going to Cuba later this  
> month.
> He asked if he could bring me back anything. I mentioned to him that
> Cuba has an extensive community garden program. My hope is to send a
> brief note from our community garden, and/or council, to a cuban
> community garden. Step one, can I get a volunteer spanish translator.
>
>                              -Jason
>
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