New compost bin

On Saturday, April 23rd, 17 people came to the garden and we managed to follow these building plans (more or less) and put together a 3 bin compost unit with untreated, cedar wood. For the kids, there was flower pot painting (with predictable results) and then a lot of running around enjoying the park and Liz Queathem's dog. Those that weren't working on the bin used the time to add soil to the raised beds, a seemingly never-ending task we have finally finished after adding 50+ cubic feet of topsoil.

The bin still needs some finishing touches so that the slats on the front of the bin will slide into place and stay there, but its looks beautiful and should serve the garden for years to come. We have a pile of unfinished compost from Grinnell College Dining Services that we moved from Howard McDonagh's farm down the road from the garden and hopefully we can use the bin to make finished compost by the fall while still putting in new materials as the season goes on. That's the advantage of a 3 bin system - it allows you to keep compost at different stages of maturity separate and continuously composting.

Grinnell College paper profiles community garden

Read the S&B's article on the Community Garden.

Compost building workshop on Saturday, April 23rd

The Community Garden will be hosting its second workshop of the year on Saturday, April 23^rd from 2 pm to 4 pm on compost bin construction. The workshop will focus on how to build a simple and inexpensive three-bin compost bin for garden, yard, and kitchen waste. There will also be information about how to compost. Composting is an easy way to reduce your contribution to the landfill and to produce a free, organic fertilizer for your lawn and garden. Participants will receive a plan for how to build their own compost bin. No registration is required – just show up. There will be activities for kids, so bring the whole family. Wear work clothes and sturdy shoes. E-mail grinnellcommunitygarden@gmail.com for more information.

More spring planting

After rain, wind, and cold on Friday and Saturday, the weather cleared and warmed enough to continue with spring planting at the garden. Today I planted shell peas, beets, and carrots in one of the learning and demonstration plots while several plot holders stopped by to work in their plots and drop off their donation for using the garden. Peas, beets, and carrots can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, so these seeds could have gone in the ground several weeks ago (read more about when to plant vegetables)

The shell peas are the heirloom variety "British Wonder" from Seed Savers Exchange, which means that we can save them for seed to use in future years. Like beans, peas are relatively easy to save for seed, needing only 5o feet separation from other pea varieties for a pure strain and needing only to dry out on the vine before collecting. I planted the peas in a double trellis, which just means that the peas will grow on both sides of the support system (in this case, plastic poles with twine strung between them) rather than just one side. This is a more efficient use of space if you have the choice of whether to plant on both sides of the trellis. I scattered the carrot and beet seeds quite thickly in 3 inch wide rows (read more about wide row planting and other planting techniques), instead of planting them single file in one row. Rather than thinning the seedlings so they are spaced evenly, as the carrots and beets grow we'll harvest the largest ones first, which will open up space for the smaller roots to reach full size and will spread out our harvest over a longer period of time.

The peas should be ready for harvest in mid-June and the beets and carrots in late June and early July.

Grinnell Head Start visits the garden

This morning we had 14 kids from Grinnell's Head Start program come to the garden with their teachers as part of a week of learning about food. The got to take part in planting the very first vegetables in the new raised beds. We started by0 planting seed potatoes and showing how the plants grow from the 'eyes' of the potato piece. Next we planted onion sets and the kids saw the difference between the onion sets and onion seeds. After that I demonstrated transplanting lettuce seedlings and showed everyone lettuce seeds. Finally, we planted 3 small pots with a lettuce seedling, radish seeds, and an onion set, and then a big pot with a seed potato. They will add soil to the pot as the potato grows to simulate the 'mounding up' that you do to a potato plant as it grows in the garden. When its time to harvest, the pot can just be dumped out to reveal the buried potatoes. The class took these pots with them so they can take care of the plants, see them grow, and harvest them. Gardening with four year olds is not precise (you don't always get the spacing or planting depth you want) but its very satisfying to see kids recognizing and working with plants and seeds. It was a short visit but I hope that the kids will be back with their class or with their parents to see the plants growing.

Successful raised bed workshop

This past Saturday 17 people came to the community garden and helped move over 350 cinder blocks and make 11 raised beds, all in two and half hours! Kids young and old also made wind socks with materials donated by Tilly Woodward at Faulconer Gallery. We put two of them up in the garden.

Thanks to everyone who came and participated. Thanks especially to Bryan Spriggs for coming by with a skid loader and moving the cinder blocks next to the garden. He saved us a lot of strain having to move all the blocks by hand from the edge of the driveway, where they were dropped off by Marquart Products of Marshalltown. The garden has been transformed!

Herman's Garden donation received

Last week we received a small cardboard box full of seed packets ranging from tomatoes and peppers to lettuce and turnips. The seeds were a donation by Seed Savers Exchange in Decorah, Iowa through a program called Herman's Garden. Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit dedicated to preserving heirloom varieties of vegetables, fruits, and flowers. Heirloom varieties are unique in that they have been passed down through many generations of gardeners through the practice of seed-saving from year to year. Through the Herman's Garden program, Seed Savers donates old seeds that were not sold the previous year to school gardens, non-profit organizations, and community gardens. In exchange, they ask the recipients to save some of their seeds and pass them on. This year at the community garden we will be growing and saving Tiger's Eye beans, a variety grown for dry beans. Beans are one of the easiest vegetables to save seed because varieties do not cross-pollinate. We will incorporate planting and harvesting the beans into the educational program for kids and at the end of the season give away some of the beans to be planted next year.

First workshop of the season!

Join us for the Community Garden's first workshop:

Constructing Raised Beds from Cinder Blocks

1-4 PM, Saturday, April 9^th

Help the Community Garden start the 2011 season and learn how to layout and construct raised garden beds using inexpensive, long-lasting cinder blocks. Raised beds provide a better growing environment for plants and are easier to maintain than in-ground plantings. Wear work clothes and sturdy shoes. There will be a range of tasks for all abilities. Bring the whole family - creative garden activities for children will be available. No registration is necessary – just show up! Contact grinnellcommunitygarden@gmail.com or call Jordan at (641) 236 5518 for more information. Sponsored by Imagine Grinnell and Grinnell Park and Recreation.

Grinnell Area Garden Club chips in funding

Thanks to the Grinnell Area Garden Club for giving $450 to the community garden to help purchase cinder blocks for raised beds. The Garden Club has given small grants to local projects for years and we're happy that they were able to help support the community garden.

Welcome to the Grinnell Community Garden blog

Thanks for visiting the Grinnell Community Garden blog. With the help of Imagine Grinnell, the Grinnell Community Garden is going to have a lot going on this year and we wanted to have a venue to share stories and pictures. Over the course of the season we will be making updates about the garden, posting announcements about workshops and other events, and putting up photos. More information about the community garden can be found on the Imagine Grinnell website.

Beginning of the 2011 season

On Saturday afternoon, April 2nd, the Grinnell Community Garden season started with the help of Ann Brau from Compass Plant CSA. She took a break from working on her farm to drive over on her tractor and till the garden space. On Thursday I had cut down last year's plants and raked out most of the leaves and straws, which we piled in one corner of the garden. The soil was dry and loose enough that Ann only needed to make one pass over each section of the garden.