End of season clean-up

The garden is now back to where we started in April, a blank slate of raised beds and dirt, but with some signs of everything that has happened this season. Since April the cinder blocks have taken on a colorful coat of paint thanks to the kids from Galaxy Youth and the Grinnell Summer Camp and those raised beds have produced a tremendous amount of biomass, which now sits in a tangle of vines and stalks next to the compost bins. The shed next to the garden has also been cleaned out, organized, and prepared for a winter of storage. The rain barrels are drained for the winter and their valves are left open to let any rain or meltwater that comes into the barrel between now and April run out.

The garlic has been planted and mulched under a thick layer of straw for the winter. It will be the first plant to emerge in the garden next March and April. While the mulch seems like it is meant to keep the garlic warm during the cold weather ahead, its most important function is actually to protect the garlic du ring the periods of thaw and freeze that occur in the late fall and the late winter. By acting as an insulating layer and keeping the ground at a steadier temperature during those periods, the mulch prevents the garlic from being pushed out of the soil by

frost heave.

Today we took a composite soil sample of the Community Garden to send in for testing at the Soil Plant Analysis Lab at Iowa State University. A composite soil sample just means that I took a trowel full of dirt from each of the eleven raised beds, put them all in a clean bucket, mixed them together, and then removed a cup and half of the mixed soil as the overall garden sample. For $8 the lab will provide test results for pH, phosphorus and potash. By learning the pH of our soil, we'll find out if we need to adjust it up (with lime) or down (with spagnum peat moss). Plants require a certain range of pH in order to be able to take up nutrients, most plants between 6 and 7 on the pH scale. If the pH is above or below that, the plants have a hard time taking in essential nutrients like phosphorus and potash which, along with nitrogen, are the key nutrients needed for plant growth.

Presenting at the Rotary Club

I was invited to speak at the Grinnell Rotary Club tonight by Lowell Bunger, a member of the Community Garden this season. As a kid, Rotary Club was one of those anonymous community organizations that I knew from the logo I saw on signs and held events at the firehouse. Now that I'm working on projects like the Community Garden, I realize the value of service clubs like the Rotary Club and how they help to bring together people from around the community on a regular basis. I presented about Imagine Grinnell, my Americorps program, and the Community Garden, starting with its beginnings in 2009 and going through what we hope to accomplish this coming year.

I asked the Rotary Club to sponsor the use of two plots by low-income families/individuals or students so that we can make becoming a garden member as accesible as possible and to also sponsor the construction of three new beds to be used by different youth groups in a Junior Master Gardener program next season.

$2500 for MICA food pantry!

We received notice this morning that Imagine Grinnell received $2500 from the Theisen's More For Your Community Grant! The grant will be used to buy a new refrigerator for thefood pantry so that it can accomodate more fresh produce, particularly from the Community Garden, the new Grin-City Collective garden, and local growers. Imagine Grinnell was one of 92 winners from a pool of 165 applicants around the state.

Seed donation

At the end of the summer hardware and garden supply stores get rid of their leftover seeds so that they can have fresh seed the following spring. While germination rates do drop when using older seed, this seed is still, for the most part, perfectly good to use. These stores can be a great source of free seeds for community gardens.

Thiesens in Grinnell recently donated all of their leftover garden seed, 120 packets of vegetable and herb seed and 100 packets of flower seed, to the Community Garden. We will use the seed in the garden next year but we will also give a lot of it away because there is far more seed than we can use in our limited garden space.

Weeding Workshop

Thursday, July 14th at 4:30 PM
Purpose: To learn and share techniques to keep your garden weed free.

Community members are invited to learn strategies to eliminate weeds without chemicals and to enjoy a more weed-free garden this year and in years to come. Topics covered will include: common varieties of weeds and their life cycles, different types of mulch, cover crops, weeding tools, and organic herbicides.

There's no registration or participation fee - just show up in your work clothes and sturdy shoes and be ready to share and to learn! There will be a range of tasks for all abilities, including creative garden activities for children, so bring the whole family!

The Community Garden is located in Miller Park near Lake Nyanza, just beyond the High Street entrance near Washington Ave. Contact Jordan Scheibel at jordan.scheibel@gmail.com or call 236-5518 for more information.

Updates from the GALFA Interns

In the last couple weeks the GALFA interns have hosted Galaxy Youth and the Ahrens Park Summer Camp. The kids have enjoyed berry picking at Arbor Lake and around the College campus, picking peas and carrots, and planting zucchini.

The apprentices have also been harvesting onions and beets for the last couple Community Meals at Davis Elementary. Yesterday, the onions appeared in enchiladas and the beets were mixed in with a salad.

Jackie and James have continued a strong connection with the MICA food pantry. They recently donated kale and beets and are working on getting MICA a bigger refrigerator in order to hold more fresh produce.

Workday for Plot Holders and Community Members

Sunday, July 10th at 3:00PM - 5:00PM
Purpose: To weed and clean up the garden.

Community Garden plot holders and any community members interested in helping are invited to participate in a common workday. Weeds have encroached on many areas of the garden, including the compost bin, the pathways, and the garden beds themselves. Before the weeds get totally out of hand and begin going to seed, creating even more problems for us next year,this is a chance to clean up the garden.

The workday also provides a time to swap produce between plot holders or to plan to swap produce later in the season. Drinks and snacks will be provided. Please bring your own tools if you have them, but some tools will be available.