The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

I’m fortunate to have a fair sized plot of land to do as much gardening as I want. But there are a lot of gardeners who used to have space but now live in a place where there is no where to plant a garden. And there are plenty of others who have never gardened before and long for a plot of soil to start gardening.

More and more community gardens are popping up all over to meet this need.  They are being started by churches, cities, towns, parks and rec departments other community groups.

Most community gardens offer individual plots. It’s a place where you stake out your claim and no one else is allowed on your spot unless you say so.  That means plot boundries are clearly marked so no one encroaches on someone else’s area Some community gardens are communal meaning everyone pitches in and work one big plot of land and all share equally. That however takes a special group of people to successfully pull that one off.

Almost all community gardens charge a fee to help defray costs such as springtime tilling of the soil. In addition to land, most gardens provide access to a water source — although the most rugged ones may not. Sometimes compost and mulch is available for gardeners to use. You’re most likely to see that in gardens sponsored by city parks departments that collect large volumes of leaves in the fall.

Generally the larger the fee, the more amenities provided.

It’s quiet now but soon be buzzing at St. Mary Organic Farm community garden.

Now’s the time to start searching for a community garden near you. Plots are normally rented out on a first come first served basis. Often plots are gone well before the gardening season starts. Early March would not be too soon to reserve your spot. Thankfully, the internet makes it fairly easy to find a community garden. Local MSU Extension Offices are a good place to start too.

Community gardens are especially good for beginning gardeners because they are places where experienced gardeners are most likely to hang out and a novice can find a mentor.

If you know of a community garden who has room for more participants, let us know in the comment section.

Bob

With all this warm weather we’ve been having, we have had an ideal chance to get a good start on our vegetable gardens.

One garden space is connected to our chicken yard.  After last fall’s first heavy frost when the tomatoes and late beans and zucchini were done, we let the chickens go into the fenced in vegetable garden to clean it up very well.  The chickens ate up the old too-mature beans and the frost-damaged green tomatoes. Along with cleaning up the veggies and weeds, they also ate up any insect pests , including insects eggs and that could over winter to cause problems next year.

So with the chickens doing most of the work of cleaning up, it wasn’t much work to pull a few bigger tough stalks and smooth the garden soil out.

Then Bob spread some compost around the area.  He used some of the wood shavings from his wood working over the winter, plus old straw bedding from the chicken houses. He spread it around evenly about an inch thick or less, and then rototilled it into the soil.  This was a great year for doing this because the soil was dry enough. The structure of the soil can be ruined if it is worked too early while it is wet.  He rototilled in one direction and then again  at a right angle .

The chickens were let in again to this area to find and eat any quack grass roots (which are a big problem for us) plus any weed seeds or insects eggs that had been exposed to the surface of the soil.

We may let them in again to this area if weeds start growing before we have a chance to plant.

Bye for now,

Judy

So, you say….”what kind of gardening are you doing in the middle of winter?” Well, you might be suprised. As professional gardeners, Judy and I are working with plants year ’round. Right now I have over 250 Poinsettias in the greenhouse that will be given to folks for Christmas. Some will end up in people’s homes, while the rest will decorate chapels.

Easter Season has also started for me. Easter Lillies need to be potted up soon or there will be no blooms for Easter this year. There is also St. Valentine’s Day to think about, not to mention shamrocks for St. Patrick’s Day. The orange trees will be ready to pick soon as well as the bananas.

I’m sure you have been thinking about spring too as the first of the gardening catalogs arrive.
You and I will have a lot of things to talk about in the upcoming days and weeks. Judy has plenty of topics as well. I’m looking forward to talking with you again and encourage you to participate often by posting comments and/or questions.

So, let’s jump right in to the deep end and get started!
Bob