Linking Gardens and Food Banks Terrific Idea

Ample Harvest is the kind of site that makes you say, what a great idea, why didn't anyone think of that before.  Follow the link to find out more about their worthwhile programs. 

We had several work days in March.  There is bed preparation and cleanup, then the first planting.  Onions, peas, lettuce, radish.  March has been very good for rain.  At the end of the month, we are over 3" above our normal rainfall.  The items planted have started to pop through, even though the nights have been cool and sometimes frosty. 

We did plant quite a number of cabbage family transplants. Broccoli, cauliflower and two kinds of cabbage.  To assist in the organic controls, we built a barrier or tent to exclude the cabbage moths.  On warm days, more than a few are already in evidence. 

The material for the "tent" is non-woven fabric.  It is available commercially, but expensive.  Our solution was to reclaim and reuse the fabric from thrift store bed skirts.  The outside ruffle was removed and sent to the quilting seniors.  We clipped the fabric pieces together using a piece of electrical conduit and bamboo stakes for support.  It was secured with old clothes pins.  Our construction was immediately tested with 30+ MPH winds and heavy rain the same day.  It is standing fast and firm two weeks later.  Also shown are the towers constructed for early peas .  We planted both regular and edible podded varieties.  UP NOT OUT. 

This photo shows several of the new raised beds that were constructed by the Scouts.  With the new beds, we have nearly doubled the amount of growing space available from last year.  About 80% of the original plan has now been constructed.  In addition, the third compost bin was built on another March work day.  This brings the number of bins to three.  We now have the flexability to move the compost around between bins for faster decomposition and have additional storage space for composting. 

The weekend edition of the Rogersville Review carried an extensive story about the garden.  Several of our regular volunteers were pictured.  The text featured an appeal for donations to help improve and expand the garden. 

We were contacted by the Church Hill Elementary School.  A group of students from the Kindergarten and first grade classes will be learning about gardening, planting and weeding over the next several weeks.  They will have a dedicated bed to plant and harvest.  Before coming to the garden, the girls are planting sunflower seeds in school and will transplant them in the garden.  We plan to tag each plant with the students name so they can watch the growth  of their seedling over the summer and into the fall. 

The weather continues to be unsettled.  We have had frequent, heavy rains, sometimes with a sprinkling of snow.  This has been mixed in between 70 degree sunny days.  The daffodils are past their peak and redbud trees are in full flower now. 

March Winds

 

The Eagle (Richard Peters)  Has Landed

The Church Hill Boy Scouts adopted the garden for an Eagle Scout project.  The eagle is Richard Peters.  He planned, directed and controlled the installation of  7 large and 4 small raised beds, completion of the second compost bin and the installation of the manufactured sand in the garden path, erecting 3 bluebird houses and construction of the garden information center.   The work days covered several nights.  

With a donation from the Community Clothes Closet, 20.75 tons or manufactured sand were purchased from Vulcan Materials - Kingsport quarry.  The company extended a substantial discount, making the donated funds stretch further.  In addition, the City of Church Hill picked up and transported the sand to the garden site.  The pile looks pretty daunting,  but the 42,000 pounds of sand was quickly moved between the rows to act as a permanent weed barrier.  

Scout leaders, other Eagle Scouts, scouts and parents all helped in moving the sand and the other construction chores.

 The crew worked past sunset and finished most of the pile under the glow of the street lights, adjourning about 8:00.  

 Scout leader Kipp West is shown with Brian Kramer and the new  Information Center for the Garden.  We used the rear of the existing sign to mount the center.  A good recycling project, the glass door was a refused custom order at a local lumber yard.  The closeout price of $1.00 needed some additional modification, but made an ideal waterproof access to the center.  We now have a central location for all our messages and information about the garden.  We are now creating the graphics and materials for our volunteers.

The scouts also constructed the second compost bin.  They removed all of the cardboard weed barrier from last year and placed in the bin for compost material.  

With the assistance of the Scouts, we were able to complete all of our construction goals for the year before the growing season really got started.  It was a great project.  The young, strong backs much appreciated. Truly an example of the wonderful community support that the garden is generating. 

First Harvest of 2011

 The "off-season" is officially over and the gardening season has begun for 2011.  We had our first work day on Feb 17th.  It was a great day as you can see.  After our morning breakfast session with the Seniors, it was off to do some garden maintenance.  The mini-composters we had established in the tomato cages were emptied and the contents moved throughout the garden beds.  The composting was not really complete, but we wanted to spread it all so it would mulch the open beds, and get rained on in the next week or two.  The contents of the 10 cages filled nearly every bed.  

The best news of the session was welcoming several new volunteers to our crew.  Marcia enlisted a Rogersville gardener to join us for the breakfast and the work session and Judy Penley brought another master gardener, Connie to join us for coffee.  Christine B joined us for the garden work a bit later.  With the weather in the 50's it was time to get growing. 

There are a few signs of growth in the garden and in our area.  The spinach we planted last Fall looks very happy in 2001.  Judy and Christine picked some leaves for a salad.  This year's first harvest was THREE months earlier than last year. 

The garden has been adopted as a project for a Church Hill Boy Scout as he works to attain his Eagle Scout badge.  I met with the Scoutmasters and Scout last week and we have a second meeting to finalize the project on Monday.  More on this next blog.

We have also received a Blue Bird house for the garden.  Carl will receive our first new Thank You card collage.  He has also volunteered to make a bench for the garden. 

The epic tome about establishing the garden, From Dirt to Dinner, The Art and Science of Producing a Garden, has been finalized, uploaded and is now for sale at www. Blurb.com.  Marcia has purchased some initial copies for review and presentation to the library and some of our major donors.  The Church Hill Library has also scheduled a Firends of the Library meeting that will discuss the process of writing, editing and publishing a book.  Brian will do the presentation on May 12th.  

It has been less than a year since this whole process began.  While we have had some frustrations, we have also had some very remarkable achievements.  With so much of the infrastructure in place, we can build on our seccesses and focus on our 2011 goals and growing. 

From Dirt to Dinner

The blurb book, From Dirt to Dinner, The Art and Science of Producing a Garden,  is in the very final revision stage.  Since the last post, all the text and pictures have been funneled into the Blurb software.  The formatting that was lost has been restored.  Marcia has been diligently correcting my exuberant use of bold and underline and we are now finalizing the remaining 50 or so pages.  With the Appendix, the book totals 114 pages.  The format is a pocket book size with a color cover.  All inside pages are  black and white.  The illustrations we chose were from the CHSC garden, victory garden posters from WWI and WWII, and  Fred, a handsome garden toad.  It was a very engrossing project that might even prove useful to others.  As insane as it sounds, we have been collecting quotes for Vol 2.

We have been working on our 2011 goals and have contacted the local school principals about including the garden in the school lesson plans.  The intermediate school has forwarded our letter to the science teachers.  Perhaps a bit more followup will be needed with the elementary principals. 

 

 There is an interesting development in gardening called High Tunnel beds.  We are considering requesting a grant from the USDA to erect a demonstration tunnel for farmers in our local counties.  Since we are an organic garden we seem to be on a very fast track for approval of 90% of the construction costs. As often is the case, our reservations are about the amount of available help for a project like this.  We would need lots of bodies not only for construction, but ongoing gardening work to plant, maintain and harvest.  There would also need to be quite meticulous records about tunnel temperatures and humidity levels.  The tunnel would also have to be opened and ventilated nearly warm day.  The tunnel extend the seasons considerably and provide farm income from late/early salad crops, berries, or flowers.  It would be a very exciting adventure, but may be too much project for the amount of labor we can attract.  The application needs to be completed in early March and there is much to be considered and completed if we are going to try to qualify for the money this year.  

Our first garden work day is scheduled for Feb 17th.  We are going to do a bit more cleanup and then spread the compost from the mini-composting stations (tomato cages) and tackle the big bin as well.  By spreading early, any material that is not fully composted can be exposed to the weather and finish in place.  Our winter has been unusually cold and snowy (for Tennessee).  It will be interesting to see how the piles have "worked" over the last few months.  

We have also been talking with our local scoutmasters and have a scout that would like to assist the garden as his Eagle Scout project.   We are still finalizing the details, but hope that a garden bench and flower bed surrounding the sign might be part of this project. 

Finally, the Fiskars Orange Thumb grants will be announced February 11.  All we know now is that our submission was accepted and received before the deadline . 

2011 Gardening Season Begins

2011 began with our family growing.  Our second granddaughter, Ashlyn Mary was born January 1st.  As we are sorting our our plans to go and visit, we are starting our garden activities.

We have completed our grant proposal for Fiskars.  There was a lot of hard work devoted to the proposal, but we did manage to resolve two nagging issues during the process.

1. We received a positive response from First Utility and will have water at the site this year.  They will re-establish the connection when the ground warms up.  One of our projects early on will be to make sure we can securely lock the connection and obtain hose, nozzles, soaker hose for the watering chores.  We will be looking for donations from the Seniors and put the Clothes Closet on alert for items that may come to them.  
2. The Second issue was a solution to the land use question.  After talking to Mayor Deal and the City Recorder, the garden was described as a Civic Asset located on property owned by the City of Church Hill.  As such, the length of tenancy, like the City Charter, is perpetual.  

For the Grant and also our continuing relationship with the Master Gardeners, these were important steps.  Organizations want to make sure that a project has a reasonable prospect for success and longevity before funding takes place.  If we are selected by Fiskars, the garden will receive $3500.00 in cash and $1500.00 of Fiskars tools.  The announcement date is February 11.

At our December evaluation session, in addition to adopting our 2011 goals and objectives, we listed a series of projects that we wanted to consider.  The list went out to our Garden Directors and others for their comments.  This week we will prioritize the list and complete things as funds become available. 

Project Description

Information Center  Posting info at the garden.  Make with recycled materials. Old window on box frame.  Attach to existing sign and make roof to keep rain out of the box.  

Manufactured Sand for Rows Needed for weed control in between the rows.  About 4” depth would be enough for adequate control

Additional Compost Bin We have good manure supply and want to expand the amount of compost available for the garden and eventual Community Garden

Additional Raised Beds For eventual community garden and expanded production at existing site.  We would expand flowers grown and herb beds. Fit some for season extension with row covers.

Soaker hose, Hose for watering  Water connection has been approved by 1^st Utilities.  Will make transplanting and watering in dry times easier

Produce scale Needed to record production on a consistent basis.  A dietary scale is fine if it can handle 20+ pounds.  Don’t need Legal for Trade and calibration

One or Two Bluebird Houses Way to encourage birdlife at the garden and provide insect control.

Bat House  Way to provide shelter for bats and to provide insect control

 We have cost estimates for each of the projects.  After the meeting the prioritized list will be posted.

Also at the meeting we are beginning our outreach to the area schools.  The educational component of our objectives needs to be addressed soon so teachers can incorporate the garden into their lesson plans and we can think about times and projects that are age appropriate.  There is some presentation material available, and we want to develop a list of teachers and administrators to contact. 

The Blurb book has also had nearly daily attention.  While the grant proposal took front stage for the last 10 days of last year, there are over 15000 words written for the book.  We are using Google Docs to collaborate on the writing and editing--the program is not very user friendly at this time.  Selecting artwork and photos is much more difficult and time consuming than word processing software.  We can all see the various versions and make suggestions and changes in real time.   Once we have settled on the text, it will be exported to MS Word and the final tuning and image placement can take place.   Our goal is to publish before the end of April.  At this point, we seem to be ahead of schedule.

Our December weather was some of the coldest on record in the Tri-Cities.  The end of the year has given way to better weather and temperatures in the 50s.  The snow has disappeared and the effects of the weather on the remaining garden plants will be assessed early in the week.  The kale pictured above is usually tough enough to easily brush it off and continue growing.  It will also be a good time to see how the compost piles are progressing.  The bacteria and fungus are like people, they slow down in cold weather.  There was some rain at at least two different times in December.  Warming weather should stimulate the pile to heat up considerably.  We should be able to soon put down the seed catalogs, stop dreaming and get growing.
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