Donation to increase local food use at Community Meal

On Sunday, May 22nd, Imagine Grinnell received a $500 donation from Hannah Key, the 2011 winner of the Lori Ann Schwab ’95 Prize for Community Service at Grinnell College. Hannah was the coordinator for the Community Meal during her time as a student and she worked to incorporate locally produced foods into the meal as she could during the summer months. As part of the tradition of the Lori Ann Schwab '95 Prize, Hannah donated $500 of her award to Imagine Grinnell, which will coordinate the purchase of local foods for the Community Meal, as well as 'endow' several plots at the Community Garden to produce food for the Meal beginning next year. By using some of the money to grow rather than purchase food, the donation will hopefully be multiplied many times over the course of several growing seasons.

First donation to MICA food pantry

Today I cut 5 heads of lettuce from the garden and dropped them by the MICA food pantry. This is our first donation of year to the pantry! While I know it isn't much and overall we won't have much to donate this year, I am so excited about the possibility of developing a consistent relationship with the pantry and providing more and more produce in future seasons. While the top priority of any food pantry is always to provide calorie-rich foods for families who can't afford groceries, fresh vegetables like lettuce are also very important to provide vitamins, phytonutrients, and fiber. Fresh foods are often the food group low-income families must give up first to stretch their food dollars.

The act of giving away food, especially food that one has grown, is an uplifting practice. If anyone is interested in donating produce from their garden to the MICA food pantry or community meal, please contact me at grinnellcommunitygarden@gmail.com. I can help aggregate produce donations and coordinate pick-up and drop-off.

Donations to garden

Craig Cooper, owner of Bikes To You and Imagine Grinnell board member, donated a large wagon from his shop to the Community Garden today. We will use the wagon frequently to haul tools and equipment between the shed and the garden. Thank you, Craig.

We also received a check last week from Upcycle Products, a rain barrel manufacturer and wholesaler in Illinois, for $200. The money is the fundraising proceeds from Imagine Grinnell's recent Spring Rain Barrel sale, which sold over 115 rain barrels to Grinnell area residents. We will use the proceeds as seed money for more fundraising efforts this summer and fall.

While we are always looking for people willing to volunteer their time at the garden, we are also grateful for any material donations. If we can avoid buying new tools and equipment or soil and mulch, we will.

Our current wish-list for the garden includes:

• high quality top soil or potting soil (for adding to the garden beds and cinder block holes)
• wood mulch (for the pathways)
• grass clippings (for mulching in beds)
• harvest knives
• long-handled diamond hoe or collinear hoe
• grub hoe
• use of a rototiller to edge around the garden

Community Garden subject of KGRN's "Let's Talk" program

Jordan Scheibel talked to Chris Johnson about the Community Garden on Wednesday, May 11th.

Rain barrels installed and spring setting in

Today we had the rain barrel workshop at the garden, with a small group of 7 attending. We cut out the grass underneath where the barrels would go, laid down newspaper andmulch, and then put the concrete blocks and linked rain barrels in place. We will install a reused gutter and downspout soon so we can start collecting rainwater to use in the garden.

After the workshop several of us stayed to do some work in the garden, including more mulching, planting kale transplants in some of the raised bed blocks, planting tomatoes (10 different heirloom varieties), and planting the common herb bed with basil, parsley, sorrel, thyme, oregano, and sage. We have loved the concrete block raised bed so far. In addition to being able to plant within the cinder block holes, the regularity of the holes allow us to measure for plant spacing without taking out a tape measure.

Some hot weather at the beginning of May and over an inch of rain in the last several days has really brought the garden along. All the carrots and beets are up and growing nicely. They desperately need to be weeded, but we will need to wait until they have developed some true leaves and a stronger root system before we begin pulling the many weeds that surround them. I added a second row of twine for the growing peas. The head lettuce is ready to be cut and the radishes are probably a little over a week from maturity. The potatoes and onions have all emerged and are growing quickly. Many of the rented plots are now planted and are coming along nicely too, with many tomatoes and peppers transplanted. We're looking forward to hosting the Bailey Park 2nd grade class at the garden this coming Friday, May 20th.

Day of Service at the garden

On Satuday, May 7th, as part of a day of service to mark the inauguration of the new Grinnell College president Raynard Kington, 10 college volunteers came to the Community Garden over the course of the morning. They weeded and mulched most of the garden pathways, moved and filled the new compost bin, and built a small herb bed. The mulch was free from the city brush dump and we used old issues of the Grinnell Herald Register newspaper (black and white printing is done with safe vegetable-based inks) underneath the mulch as another layer of cover to prevent weeds. Thanks to Emily Stanfield, Imagine Grinnell's current work study intern and future Non-Profit Apprentice, for leading the workday and for all the volunteers who participated on what turned out to be a beautiful, summer-like day. By bringing in groups of volunteers we can accomplish necessary, seasonal tasks like weeding and mulching with much less labor per person. Since the plan is for the Day of Service to be an annual event at the college, we hope the Community Garden can plan a regular set of activities around having a group of college volunteers in early May.

Beginning to grow

After a cold couple of weeks, things at the garden are beginning to get going - the radishes have germinated, the onion sets have put on good growth, and the peas have begun to poke up out of the ground. Still waiting for the potatoes to emerge and for the carrots and beets to germinate. Nearly all of the rented plots have been planted. Within a few weeks we will have planted the warm-season crops - beans, tomatoes, squash, etc.

Upcoming rain barrel workshop

On Sunday, May 15th at 2 pm there will be a workshop on installing and using a rain barrel. Imagine Grinnell has purchased two 55 gallon rain barrels and a linking hose from Upcycle Products, which will be delivered to Grinnell on May 7th as part of the Spring Rain Barrel Sale. We'll install the rain barrels along with a salvaged gutter and downspout on the north side of the City-owned shed next to the garden. It does not take much roof to get enough water to fill a 55 gallon barrel. In fact, for every 1,000 square feet of roof area served by a downspout, 600 gallons of water runs off during a 1-inch rain! Even an 8 ft x 4 ft sheet of plywood is sufficient to fill a 55 gallon barrel. Considering how likely it is that the barrel will overflow during Grinnell's wet summers, we will likely construct a rain garden next year to receive that excess water. The barrels at the garden will be raised off the ground with cinder blocks and we will use the water for the garden as much as possible, supplementing with the well water when necessary. We may have some difficulty getting sufficient pressure for a garden hose, so we've considered the possibility of a pump, including a solar-powered pump.

Rain water is actually much better for plants than well water because rain water is naturally soft, devoid of minerals, chlorine, fluoride and other chemicals. It may seem obvious that rainwater would be better for plants, but so often well water is used on gardens and lawns. Grinnell College starting catching water on their new athletic building and using it to water their football field and they've found the grass has done much better. Using rainwater alone to water lawns would probably lessen the need for chemical fertilizers to boost the appearance of the grass.