My Community Garden Project

[Vasilisa]

Quinoa

 

[kyuuei]

I wonder have you ventured into looking at the gardening layouts that books like Little House in the Suburbs have shown? They show companion gardening (great learning experience for kids on what works well together and identifying beneficial partnerships) and how to organize many crops in a smaller square footage area.

Also, I require more pictures from you on this project. It sounds so lovely.

 

[Ingrid in grids]

Awesome idea! There is a community garden near to where I live, which started almost 15 years ago. It's very successful and lots of fun to visit. It's in an inner-city area though, and I'm not entirely sure how they keep up with demand... I assume families that grow their plants and produce there pay some sort of a small fee, and that there might be some sort of waiting list for plots. I know before all this you have to sign up for a membership and become a "Friend" of the project.

When the garden first started:

The gardens now:

 

[The Ü™]

Awesome idea! There is a community garden near to where I live, which started almost 15 years ago. It's very successful and lots of fun to visit. It's in an inner-city area though, and I'm not entirely sure how they keep up with demand... I assume families that grow their plants and produce there pay some sort of a small fee, and that there might be some sort of waiting list for plots. I know before all this you have to sign up for a membership and become a "Friend" of the project.

When the garden first started:

The gardens now:

Did they steal the wooden beams from that roller coaster?

 

[Ingrid in grids]

Did they steal the wooden beams from that roller coaster?

Ha! That would probably be a good use for them. The roller-coaster is out of use and it too dangerous for rides. A while back, it seemed like they were continually doing work on it only for it to break down again. I think it's simply decorative now. IMO, they should totally rebuild it with modern materials, but still keep the shape and general look of the old one.

 

[Beorn]

Very cool pics, [MENTION=9335]Maddy[/MENTION]
Thanks for sharing!

I don't have any pics yet, but I do have an update.

We've had several cleanup days and now the garden is at least presentable with fresh mulch down, weeds gone, and overgrowth trimmed back. I'm not sure how much more work I'll get done this summer as I have other large and related projects I'm working on.

For instance today I started a farm stand selling fruit and vegetables from local growers at the ministry next to the garden. I had a huge selection of beets, collard greens, blueberries, lettuce, strawberries, peaches, squash, etc. all availaible at subsidized and ridiculously low prices. I mean just about everything was a dollar whether it was three cukes, a head of cabbage, 6 apples, or a pint of strawberries. Quite a few neighborhood folk came out and bought today and I expect even more in the coming weeks. It feels good to give the corner store across the street a little competition. Maybe next year we can get the raised beds going and sell stuff from our own garden.

 

[Beorn]

I wonder have you ventured into looking at the gardening layouts that books like Little House in the Suburbs have shown? They show companion gardening (great learning experience for kids on what works well together and identifying beneficial partnerships) and how to organize many crops in a smaller square footage area.

Also, I require more pictures from you on this project. It sounds so lovely.

I will have to take a look at those books. They sound very interesting and I do need to start thinking about how I can incorporate some child programs into the garden. We serve free lunches to neighborhood kids every day and I really need to get them out in the garden for an activity.

I'll post pics as soon as I get some.

 

[Beorn]

Sorry I still don't have pics. I need to get them from other people. I put a short retaining wall on the front to keep mulch from going on the sidewalk. It looks really good, but is still lacking flowers.

Tonight we had a really encouraging fundraiser with an urban ministry expert that came from Florida. It was really cool to hear from this guy who pretty much turned a neighborhood around from having one of the highest rates of violence in the state to no violence at all. He accomplished it not by doing handouts, but by empowering the homeless and poor to help him and help others. Something like 80% of homeless men that were willing to volunteer for service projects got themselves off the street. Very cool. It will be neat if we can do something similar in our neighborhood. Actually, already kids are playing where drugs used to be dealt and people got shot in broad daylight. So we're well on our way.