Let's #ForkitOver for Food Gardens

either then #Mountainair #CommunityGarden or the St Vincent de Paul garden project (contact Lenora Romero for more information). Are there other local garden causes? Is anyone participating in Plant a Row for the Hungry? What's that you ask? A topic for another post.  In the meantime, check out the site.

Please let me know if you (personally or as part of a group) has a garden project or cause so I can add to the list and mention your project here.  

Bulletin from the cause: Plant Healthy Gardens. Feed a Hungry World. Go to Cause Let's Fork it Over for Food Gardens #forkitover Check out our campaign video & site to learn how you might win $1500 worth of garden goodies to share with your favorite garden cause. http://fork-it-over.org/ Call to Action Video: Let's Fork it Over for Food Gardens #forkitover Watch Video

a late Happy Easter

from iCreate and the Mountainair Community Garden

 

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt  ~ Margaret Atwood

 

In the interest of sustainability, part of the iCreate mission of sustainable development and social self-realization through creativity, please take the time to read Margaret Atwood's Green Protocols: consider implementing them, including the ones about air travel. This manner of exhortation is part of our Earth Day 2011 pledge, so get used to it. What's yours? Thanks to cyber-colleague Pat Harvey, Vancouver Island, for sharing image, quote and sentiment...

A Community Garden Ideal

More than a community garden, this sharing garden provides fresh produce for all who've contributed to it, with surplus going to the local food bank. 


Coordinators Chris Burns and Llyn Peabody note that with one large plot rather than separate plots, Alpine Sharing Garden enables more efficient food production - from watering to optimizing for pollinators. They share tips for getting started, garden planning, communicating with volunteers, garden practices like deep mulch, and especially the joy of giving without expecting a return. 


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Questions for April 23 Community Garden Meeting

Garden Manager Joan Embree poses questions for our consideration, to think about before and in preparation for our upcoming planning meeting, and invites Community Garden Members to call or email her with ideas for the agenda...

Our meeting at 10 a.m. on April 23 at the garden will be a good time to talk about what we'd like to aim for with the development of the community garden.  Addie, in particular, would like to have a clearer picture of what our garden plans are.  If everyone would come prepared to talk about our options and what we hope for with the community garden, that would make for a good advance.

• Do we want to apply for other grants?
• Do we see the garden growing beyond the picket fences of the Mojave Rose?
• What are the aims of the gardeners, if any, beyond shared gardening tasks and crops?
• In 5 years, what do we want the community garden and the gardeners to look like?
• If we want to expand participation and aim for new programs, how do we do that?

     Dan and I will be getting into Mountainair Friday if all goes well.  Send me an e-mail or call me at 847-2539 with ideas to put on the agenda. I'm looking forward to seeing you again and getting to work on this year's garden.

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FYI, I plan to answer these questions publicly right here online and invite not just active Community Garden supporters but any interested reader to do the same. I tender advance apologies for any flipness (by no means inadvertent) on my part that the more serious may take as unwarranted.

Starting a #CommunityGarden

Interested in gardening but either not sure how to get started or would rather not tackle starting a garden by yourself? Consider joining us at the Mountainair Community Garden. Come to our April 23 planning meeting and learn more. We'll be posting more details about the meeting. In the mean time, you can contact our Garden Manager, Master Gardener Joan Embree for more information, housemaven@comcast.net

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A community garden is a great way to get started in gardening if you've never planted or grown anything.

Question: Jolee,

Spring has arrived (down here anyway). I don't have much room for gardening out back and I definitely don't have a green thumb. You were recently involved in starting a community garden in Keller. Could you tell our readers how they could start a garden in their own community?

Answer: Jay

A community garden is a great way to get started in gardening if you've never planted or grown anything. For those of you that may not be familiar with its premise, it is a garden located in the community, perhaps on public land or maybe owned by a business or church. You can purchase a plot – some for as little as $1 – and they provide you with most of the things you need to grow your own produce. Most gardens provide you with a raised bed, compost and soil, mulch, water and other products for keeping pests away. Most community gardens are organic and do not allow pesticides or chemicals, and most of them give away a portion of their harvest. Some give away maybe just 10%, while others require 80% or more. Many times local food banks are the recipients of fresh produce from the local community garden.

Read the rest of Starting a Community Garden