The 2008 Bayside Community Garden Newsletter

It’s spring! Can you believe it? After many snow and ice-logged months of waiting, the soil is nearly thawed and early plantings of peas, spinach, kale, cabbage, lettuces and the like are just around the seasonal corner. Again, 2007 was a successful growing year (literally and figuratively) and we look forward to an even better one in 2008!

Some goals for this season:

• Repair our garden beds – as I’m sure some of you have noticed, the planks holding up your raised beds are looking pretty shabby and are in need of repair. Budget allowing, we hope to rebuild the beds completely in the fall, but until that point, we’re planning on driving stakes around some beds to prop up the wood and replacing entire boards if they’re completely shot. Hopefully this should be done sometime in the next month – we will do our best not to disturb the soil within while doing so, so anything that might be growing there (perennials, garlic, etc.) isn’t disturbed.
• Create a workable, healthy, productive system for composting – for now, any weeds, kitchen scraps and compostable materials should be piled in the depression (marked by a sign) below the bins. I and/or a few volunteers will occasionally add these materials to the bins and water/turn them so that we have nice, rich compost sometime this season.
• Bring in educators/presenters – the hope is to invite master gardeners and others to teach classes and give lectures on garden-related topics (composting, perennials, organic pest control, herb gardening, seed starting, canning).
• Hold a series of workdays (once a month like last year), potlucks (maybe once every couple months) and a harvest celebration at some point in the fall (hopefully with live music).
• Keep all beds full with active gardeners and the space mowed and attractive.

Policies and Procedures
(yep, there need to be some)

1. All beds should be actively used and maintained throughout the season

Basically, this means keeping weeds down to a minimum and keeping your bed planted. Of course, it’s understood that people have other lives and take vacations and such. For some, this is a serious hobby, for others, just a meditation and a way to relax and decompress in the sun. That said, if beds are obviously not being maintained for an extended period of time, either Kate or I will check in with you. If you are going away for a while, it’s encouraged that you have someone maintain your plot while you’re away. Or if that’s not possible, let us know and one of us will gladly help out! If you’re contacted and the bed still isn’t being used, it will be turned over to another gardener – there are plenty of folks waiting for a plot and willing to use it actively.

2. Attending workdays

We’re planning on holding a workday once a month (dates to come), probably on the weekend. Unlike at the beginning of last year, these should be fairly flexible, and if you have to miss a few, no big deal. But please try to make them if you can and contribute some time – as this is a community garden and the beds are provided free of charge, it’s important that everyone plays a part in making it work. Also, bringing food/drink is encouraged – I’m going to try to get some donations from Big Sky, Whole Foods and Coffee by Design if they’re willing.

3. Please keep the pathways clear around your bed (rocks, tools, etc.), for the lawnmower’s (and person who is mowing) sake.

4. The Bayside Community Garden is an ORGANIC garden. For the health of the earth and the community, and because others will inherit your soil once you’ve moved on, please refrain from using inorganic pesticides or fertilizers (Miracle Grow, Roundup, etc.). There are plenty of alternatives (organic preparations, using mulch, maintaining your bed, etc.) and I’m happy to share some with you if you’re curious and/or have a nasty disease or pest-related problem during the season. Also, I’m going to try to post some materials about pest controls and enriching soil organically on the webgroup site.

5. Most of our tools have been loaned to us, and we really can’t afford to buy more if they are stolen, so please take care to return them to the shed when your done with them and make sure to lock up if you’re the last one out of the garden.

Other Things

• We’re working on getting mulch, manure and compost for the beds – there’s a small pile of manure next to the compost piles from last year, and you’re welcome to some if you’d like to amend your soil. While it’s well-rotted, know that it may burn seedlings, so the sooner you work it into the soil before planting, the better. If I can find a good source of cheap straw bales, I’ll pass around a signup sheet for folks who’d like to buy 1 or 2. Mulch is SO helpful for keeping weeds down and moisture in the soil. I can’t recommend it enough for the success of your crop. Same thing is also true for compost – if we can get some, working it into your bed should really help keep your plants healthy.

• Early on in the season, we’ll distribute a signup sheet for people who’d like to volunteer some time and energy at a specific task (lawn mowing, maintaining the perennial beds, fence construction, compost detail, etc.) – if you have a particular interest, definitely let me know! Keep in mind this is voluntary (not required) but very encouraged, as again, our resources are stretched and the more people who can chip in, the better the garden will be.

• Keep track of garden happenings, workday dates, and communicate/network with other gardeners via the Bayside Community Garden Webgroup (see below).

Bayside Community Garden Webgroup

The Bayside Community Garden Yahoo group website was created last season to keep gardeners informed about special events and notices. If you aren’t yet a member, let me know (John Affleck, fieldofstones@gmail.com) and I’ll send you an invite. If you are already a member (there are 10 of us at this point), here’s a little recap of how it works:

The site can be found at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bayside_community_garden/

You might want to save this in your favorites or as an icon on your desktop so you can access it easily. Otherwise, you’ll need to go to http://groups.yahoo.com/ and type in bayside_community_garden.

The group site is fairly straightforward and easy to use. Once you sign in to yahoo with your username and password, check out the green list of links on the left side of the page.

• The ‘Files’ link is a place to look at and post - you guessed it - files! I'm thinking this would be a good place for online contracts/agreements, newsletters, pdf articles and the like.
• 'Photos' is a place to store relevant (or not) images of the garden – you’ll find some posterity pix from the now-extinct yahoo group site as well as some more recent shots. Feel free to post your own.
• 'Links' offers a place where you can post links to other garden-related sites.
• 'Database' is an interesting one. Looks like you can do lots of stuff here. Create lists, for example, favorite vegetables, seed catalogues or lists of diseases or pests you find in the garden. Others can add to the list in an ongoing fashion. This might also be a place to list contact information for people who are willing to have theirs posted so that people can be in touch.
• The 'Polls' function looks like a question-answer forum, although I haven't played with it at all. "Members" lists all of us and our information - this is the place where you can change your user preferences.
• And lastly, the Calendar will exist as a place to list any kind of events that relate to the Bayside Community Garden, or even things that do not (for example, you might want to post a plant sale that's happening, or maybe a class on gardening taught somewhere in the area). Meetings/workdays will be listed in the calendar and a reminder email will be sent out whenever one is about to happen.

Feel free to add links, files or pictures to the site – the more the merrier! This is a tool to keep in touch with each other and share our experiences, knowledge, comments and gardening schemes.

One last thing - when messages are posted to the site, they are sent out to your email account. Some folks have found they prefer to receive messages posted to the site emailed to them in a daily digest, or to just receive essential messages. To set preferences, you simply click on "Members," (on the left-hand side of the page) find your name/email address listed, and click on the drop-down box. By selecting "Special Notices,” you will just receive key messages (about meetings and other important things), probably a few times per month. If you opt to select "Individual Emails," you'll get an email every time someone posts to the group. Although this probably won't be too often (a couple per week at most I'm guessing), it may be too much and you may want to choose "Daily Digest" instead, which will send all the posts done in one day, packaged in a single email.