A Gardener's Retreat

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

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.

Assorted short and tall members of the community garden assembled for another “workday” on April 30 to put up the deer fence. Fortunately, the call for tall gardeners was heeded and there were plenty of people of sufficient height to staple deer fencing to the poles. Work commenced at 4pm and was finished by shortly after 5. Which was good because just about then it started to rain.

There were so many gardeners on hand that some of us were freed up to do other things. Dora and Carole enlarged the rhubarb plot and transplanted two healthy specimens from an empty plot. The new rhubarbs are huge so hopefully they’ll like being with the others in their new location.

Joe got out his trusty human-powered push mower and mowed more of the perimeter. We expect to get a lawn mower this season so gardeners will be able to mow whenever the mood strikes them.

Over in the herb garden, me and new gardener Ian weeded out grass. We found that grass likes to throw out roots close to the surface making it relatively easy to weed. That said, we only managed to clear about 15 square feet of garden so the project will continue. New plants are welcome but respect old plants. Hopefully, the weeding process will make it more apparent where the old plants are.

So there you have it. A lot of work was accomplished in a short time, and everyone seemed to enjoy the camaraderie of being there, working together toward a common goal. Meanwhile, the garden is the better for it.

The Community Gardens had their first workday on April 26 to start putting up the deer fence.  About six people were on hand to do the actual work of digging the holes and putting up the fence posts.  By noon, all the fence posts were up and ready for the final task of attaching the mesh fencing.  At our next workday on April 30, we’ll be finishing the deer fence.  Tall people are encouraged to attend for the height-sensitive work of stapling the fencing to the polls.  

Nancy brought lots of seedlings and others brought seedlings and seeds.  There were a variety of vegetables and flowers to sample.

Nancy also spent part of the workday cultivating the center plot (one of the garden common areas) and planting out strawberry plants.  We’ll all enjoy nibbling on those, once they start to bear fruit.

In other good news, Joe and Carol loaned the garden their push mower.  Dora mowed the perimeter of the garden and Chris mowed pathways. A permanent mower for the garden is still on the list.

Dora and Chris contemplate the rhubarb