A Gardener's Retreat

Hello Gardeners!

You may have heard by now:

The Retreat is in a state of flux due to the closing of the VT State Hospital after Hurricane Irene flooded the facility in Waterbury. Last week, VT announced it would not be reopening the hospital, and the Retreat may be a new resource for mental health services that were once provided by the state.

Sandy met Nov. 1 with Brenda Nichols (Executive Assistant to CEO) and Peter Albert (Director for External Affairs) of the Retreat. Currently, they need approvals from the legislature to act on a plan to expand, and therefore break ground at the garden site.

They are willing to let us continue to garden there, as long as we would be willing to move out at a moment’s notice, which could very well happen midsummer- a decision could be made as of the 2012 (Spring) VT Legislative Session.

At the same time, Post Oil Solutions is interested in seeing the community garden project fledge. Their mission is to start projects that would ideally spin off on their own.

The garden leadership team met tonight to discuss priorities at this time. Here’s what we think the garden membership should know:

1. We want to find a new umbrella organization (a non-profit that would act as a fiscal agent). Groups that seem worth researching right now include the Windham Foundation and CABA (Community Action Brattleboro). Its possible we could increase our funding resources with a move to a new umbrella.

2. We are looking for a new site.  Oddly, Carole was recently approached by a private land owner who expressed interested in providing space for community gardening. We have also had some contact with SIT about our need.

3. We are negotiating a refund from the Retreat.  With funds to work with, we may be able to recover from an as yet unplanned relocation- not without a loss-, but with a good foot forward.

4. We are supposed to have an election for new Leadership Team Members.  We would like to start the process of identifying interested gardeners by inviting them (or any garden member) to join a 2012 planning committee.  A meeting schedule for the committee has not yet been established. Please reply to this email if you are interested in joining this committee.

5. We don’t know yet what the committee will decide, but there is a very good chance we will not be gardening at our current location in the spring.  We need to remove all interior fencing and debris from the garden by Thanksgiving, either way. Otherwise we risk leaving a few responsible souls to deal with it! Whether we stay or move on, we will require that returning gardeners be Gardeners in Good Standing. This clean up item will be part of that consideration. Mark your calendar for a November 12 burn-pile and end of season party. (More to come….)

Thanks for bearing with us! We would have set a burn pile date sooner- but this has been a sorting process that has had a timeline of its own. Your ideas and concerns are welcome!

Cheers,

Lisa Kuneman

Fall is here! And after all the rain of Irene, and then Lee, we have more grass than we know what to do with, and more rotten tomatoes, too. We will need to each cut the grass surrounding our plots. There are scissors and scythes at the garden. There is a wasps nest under the bulletin board roof, but the wasps are sleepy from the cold lately.

If you have a fence around your individual plot- please control the grass on either side of it- or even think about taking it down now. Fences need to be down come November 1 at the latest. Off season work on the pathways require this. Thanks all!

Fencing
Hoorah! The remainder of the deer netting is up. If you see a fencing team member- be sure to give them a high five. They’ve been working overtime.

Mowing
Again, Hoorah! We have a power mower and a reel mower, a system for gas and for rotating mowing shifts, and one more weed-whacker rental really helped get things moving.

Please take a look at the pathways around your plot and ask yourself: is there anything going on here that would make it challenging to mow around my plot? Keep the mowing team in mind- and feel free to mention how great things are looking- and how great thingshave been looking, due to the mowers who independently took mowing in hand before we had a system up and running.  Thanks all!

Water logistics
Carole will be organizing the water workers. If you have water issues or special needs, please contact Carole (cmcrompton@comcast.net or 254-4833) so the water workers can take these needs into consideration when making their plans.

There has been an issue with the spigot near the garden.  Please note- when there is an issue with the spigot we are free to get water from the house until it is resolved. We are working on communication with the Retreat in order to understand and resolve the issue.

Leadership Team Meeting
The regular, monthly LT meeting is scheduled for Monday July 18, 6pm-8pm. It’s held at the Brattleboro Food Coop’s offices (Main Street- through the door between Fireworks’ two windows). Garden members are welcome to attend.  If you’d like to bring an item for discussion, please email Lisa in advance.

Rule Change: At the last meeting, the LT  voted to allow the use of plastic mulch in the garden.

Meeting Minutes Archive
Lise LePage (AGRCG website manager and iBrattleboro co-creator) has posted an archive of meeting minutes for the Leadership Team at the AGRCG website.

Speaking of the AGRCG website, have you seen it?  Here’s a link: http://blueworld.org/garden/   Lise recently posted a very good read about tests of her garden’s soil quality (ph, etc).

Is there something you’d like to post? Send it in! Garden photos are welcome (even hoped for), too.

A Note About Potato Bugs
Potato bugs are here- so if you have planted potatoes, please remove and destroy them (all three stages) on the leaves. Otherwise everyone’s plants will become infested. The bugs weaken the plants making the potatoes susceptible to late blight.

Community Gardening Hours
If you’d prefer to go to the garden when you might find others gardening, we’ve posted community garden hours

Sundays at 1:00 and Wednesdays at 6:00, for you and for those who feel similarly. Feel free to let us know your thoughts on it, and whether you make a point of gardening at those times or not.

Mulching Time
The weather is warming up- and its a good time to mulch if you haven’t yet.  With the and cooler temperatures and rain we’ve had- this hasn’t been critical. The sandy soil tends to dry out fast in hot, drier weather.

Happy Gardening!

The Herb Garden at A Gardener’s Retreat Community Garden is finally starting to look like an herb garden!  Herb gardeners Lise, Annie, and Chris have all been hard at work, filling the garden with plants, tending and weeding, and recently laying in a layer of leaf mold.

Mullein Seedling

As planned, the layout is more or less as follows:  flowers in the front by the garden entrance, culinary herbs in the half of the garden closest to the entrance, and medicinal plants toward the back.  We expect the addition of new plants to be ongoing at this point.

In the medicinal area, we have first-year mullein, wormwood, calendula, monarda, sage, yarrow, and skullcap, among others.

In the culinary section, there are a great many plants, chiefly thyme (two kinds!), sage, parsley, winter savory, apple and peppermint, basil, pineapple sage, and tarragon.

Flowers are still a bit thin although we have wonderful healthy Coreopsis clumps in front (the large yellow flowers) as well the aforementioned Monarda, which gives off the sweetest lemony aroma when you walk by.  We’ve added Obedient Plant (thank you, Jane) as well as Evening Primrose, Echinacea, Salvia, and Snapdragons.

One interesting discovery:  the two tall plants that resemble milkweed turn out to be Elecampane.  Who knew?  Fortunately, we  didn’t weed them out pending identification.  You’ll recognize them by their yellow, thistle-like flowers and fleshy leaves.

Donations are still being accepted.  Just leave your labeled plants by the entrance to the Herb Garden and we’ll put them in for you.

We hope everyone enjoys the garden almost as much as we did planting it.

The Gardener’s Retreat Herb Garden team has been busily working on the rejuvenated herb garden, and we’re happy to report that we’ve made some progress.  The beginnings of a structured (but not too structured!) herb garden are in place, some herbs have been planted, and we’ve even labeled a few of the early arrivals.  There’s still lots to do, but we feel good about where we are a month into the season.

We started the project by defining the perimeters of the herb garden space; in this case, we laid out a circle with a piece of twine which we had tied to a stake in the center of the circle.  Nancy and Chris dug a border all the way around so we’d know where our circle was.  After that, we all weeded and dug for all we were worth until the garden was clear of tall grass, roots, stray apple mints, and the like.  In the process, Lise discovered a very strange cache of soft round fleshy mushrooms under a patch of grass.  Not wishing to disturb them, she left both the clump of grass and the mushrooms in place.

Once the entire circle was cleared out, we weeded and shaped the perennials that were already there.  This included large clumps of yarrow, bergamot, irises, wormwood, coreopsis, skullcap, and other carryovers from the old garden.  Although not all of them are “herbs” in the usual sense of the word, we thought they’d earned their place.  We also kept a few wildflowers here and there, including black-eyed susan, bladderwort, cinquefoil, red clover and sheep sorrel.  Some are pretty, others medicinal; all are indigenous to the meadow.

The next step was to lay in paths with straw.  We had originally conceived of a sort of medicine wheel pattern with paths leading into the center from the four directions.  Although appealing, the garden itself resisted the design, putting large established plants everywhere you wanted a path to be.  In the end, we let the garden tell us where the path was and so it spirals in from the entrance on the left.  Users of the  garden will notice that the shortest distance is not the path between two points but we hope that everyone will relax into the meditative spirit of the place and use the path (although I have caught myself hopping between points on the path more once than while planting).

Although there is still more weeding and clearing to do in places, we’re starting to put in plants now so they’ll have time to establish.  If you have herb plants that you would like to donate, please leave them at the herb garden next to the straw pile at the entrance and let us know what you left . We’ll get out there and find a place for your plants, either in the herb garden itself (on the medicinal or the culinary side) or in one of the flower beds.  Please don’t plant things yourself as there is a method to our madness, and we want to make sure everything goes in a good spot.

Finally a word about usage:  It’s our goal to have enough going on in the herb garden so that people can pick a bit here and there.  But please don’t pick just yet as most plants are very small.  Once things get big enough, feel free to take sprigs as you need them, but remember that 30 families are using this garden and leave plenty for others to enjoy.

We’ll have more herb garden news later, when we have a little more to talk about and show.  Once the garden is more planted out, we’ll do a tour for gardeners and friends.

A lot of people have been asking me where I get my herbal bug spray, by which I swear.  Well, I finally looked it up on the Internet last night, and wouldn’t you know, it’s made by Pura Vida right here in Brattleboro.  The product is called Bug Dope (“Fighting the war on bugs”) and it is the best herbal bug spray I’ve ever used.  Not only is it effective, it smells great and is safe for kids and pets.

I got my bottle from the maker herself, Judia Ziegner, at a Newfane craft festival.  But you don’t have to go that far to get yours.  Pura Vida have a shop, right near the archway in Harmony Lot (sharing space with Malisun).  If you can’t make it down to the store,  you can also order the product at their web site, vermontoils.com, or by phone at 802-254-8776.

I talked to Judia this morning (to make sure they were still making Bug Dope) and she filled me in on the active ingredients.  Essential oil of lemongrass keeps away horse flies and black flies while thyme oil repels ticks, mosquitoes, and no-see-ums, giving you all-around protection.  The version I bought also contained rosemary which seems to be helpful as well in the bug repelling department.  Bug Dope comes in a 4 oz. spray bottle and costs $12/each or 2 for $20.  While this may seem pricy at first, consider that it is effective, safe, fragrant, and natural, not to mention local!

And finally, a word to the wise — the black flies are biting.  The one day I didn’t bring my Bug Dope, I got nailed by them and my face did not enjoy the experience.  So bring something for biting insects when you come to the garden, because they’re vicious this year.

The Fence

We plan to get the poultry wire all the way around the garden this Monday (6/3) from 6-8 pm. Please come and help the fencing team with this push. Its a big job. Most important: wear bug spray!

Leadership Team

From February this year, the leadership team (LT) was made up of a handful of people who wanted to rethink the organization of the garden to resolve past challenges. This group had hammered out some working policies for moving forward, created a successful membership drive, and negotiated a relationship with Post Oil Solutions and a lease with the Brattleboro Retreat. As of May we had 3 LT members- all of whom are volunteers: Sandy Pagniucci- Community Liason, Carol Crompton- Treasurer, and Lisa Kuneman- Facilitator.

The LT added 2 new members and an Herb Garden Manager in May: Sharon Barnard is filling the LT role of Gardener Rep (albeit a modified version of the role as spelled out in the 2011 policies), and Chris Bates is the LT’s Special Project Coordinator. Lise LePage, who created and maintains our website, is working to revitalize the community herb garden.

Regular Leadership Team meetings are held on the 3rd Monday of each month, from 6-8pm at 72 Main Street (downstairs in the Brattleboro Food Coops offices). Any body can come.  To add an item to the agenda, contact Lisa at this email address (agrcg1@gmail) prior to the meeting.

Mowing

As of last week, Special Projects LT member Chris Bates gave up on trying to fix free, broken donated mowers and purchased a new mower! Without a shed to protect it from exposure to the elements, we need to figure out a plan for using it. As far as a system for mowing goes, we know this much… (See our new post Mowing News for more.)

Pathways

This year we have had lots new members join! This is exciting. It’s also an opportunity to review some expectations that help us maintain neighborly relations.  If you plant, or leave items in the pathways, it can impede mowing efforts and trip up gardeners who are navigating the pathways with their hands full or with the wheel barrow.

How’s your garden growing?

June is well underway, we’ve had typically variable New England weather.  What’s working so far? What isn’t working so well? Are your seeds coming up? Did you lose anything to too much rain? Have you seen the bluebirds nesting in the box just outside the fence? Have you been attacked by swarms of mosquitos in the evening? (I have!)

Send your personal garden news- we’ll share it via email and on the website. Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Lisa Kuneman
for AGRCommunityGarden

As of last week, Special Projects LT member Chris Bates gave up on trying to fix free, broken donated mowers and purchased a new mower! Without a shed to protect it from exposure to the elements, we need to figure out a plan for using it. As far as a system for mowing goes, we know this much…

1. Mowing of the area outside the fence and the pathways inside the fence each represent a shift.
2. Each area needs to be mowed weekly- that means 2 shifts per week.
3. Obligation to take a shift will rotate through the list of mowers- which will be posted on the bulletin board, and reminders will be sent via email.
4. Sharon will monitor mowing progress and send out reminders.
5. Once a mower has completed their shift, they should mark the date and the time spent on the bulletin board or contact Sharon (sharonbarnard207@comcast.net).

More to come in a little bit…

At the Community Garden, gardeners sign up for teams to do various jobs around the garden.  In addition to the Leadership Team, there are teams in charge of fencing, mowing, special projects, and the herb garden.  All teams are underway.

The fence team has done an amazing job, digging a trench and laying in an underlayer of chicken wire to (hopefully) deter groundhogs.  A mesh deer fence will follow.

A mowing team has been assembled and the garden has both a scythe and a push mower.  Both tools work fine if you want to mow around your plot.  Chris of the Special Projects team has offered to fix a power mower for garden use as well.

And finally, the herb garden refurbishment has begun, with a center established and a perimeter dug.  Now we’re clearing out the grass and  cleaning up the perennial herbs that are already in the garden.  We’re hopeful to have the plot cleared in the next two weeks, and then we’ll be ready to lay paths and put in some new plants.  At that time, we’ll put out a call to any community gardeners with herb plants to contribute.

When you add in all the gardening folks have done in their own plots, the garden is coming along well this year.  If you have time after your chores, take a stroll around the garden and see what interesting things other gardeners are doing.