Welcome 2012 Gardeners!

We hope you have all enjoyed a nice winter, mild as it has been.  And though it's only February, it's time to start thinking about the Main Street Community Garden again!  There are signups to be completed, direct seeding to take place, transplants to be started, signs to be painted, compost to be spread and tilled and fun events to be planned.  Dates and details are below.

We really want everyone to ENJOY their time being part of the garden and feel like the garden is their own backyard.  Due to feedback from last year we will be sending out fewer emails and relying more on this website to relay more detailed info on plants, to do lists and other fun tidbits.  Start checking the garden website on a weekly basis to keep up with the latest! 

Sign ups & Expectations:
We will hold a sign-up and composting, tilling, sign hanging session on TUESDAY, APRIL 24th, 2012, 4:30-6pm.  Please mark your calendars and plan on attending as this year we will once again be limiting the garden to 40 participants.  Cost will be $35 for the season.  We are once again parterning with the Cameron Place CSA to get seedlings started and access to gardening materials as needed.

Our sessions will be held on Tuesdays from 5-7pm.  Throughout the season everyone will be required to participate in a beginning of the year event and an end of season event as well as 10 hours for the season.  In order to allow everyone to keep better track of their participation, there will be a sign up sheet located on the side of the tool-shed. Every week there will be a garden leader who will be responsible for helping direct the activities, weeding, planting and harvesting for the evening.  Please let us know if you want to be a garden leader or waterer this summer, these are critical to keeping the garden going!

Keep in mind our garden is all natural and herbicide and pesticide free!  (This means more manual weeding and sometimes creative ways to address bugs!)  For those of you that are new, we plant the garden together, meet on Tuesdays to care for the garden and harvest once a week.  Everyone present on Tuesdays is encouraged to take home a share of veggies.  For people that can't make Tuesday evening work sessions you should plan on working and harvesting at a time that works for you, and remember to log your time on the sign up sheets.

If you know you want to be involved in the garden again this year (or if you have moved or for some other reason won't be participating, let us know as well!), please reply with an email so we have an idea of how many new people we can bring on this year (aka how much outreach and advertising we should do!) We will be limiting the number of participants this year and will develop a wait list after the sign-up day.  We will do an assessment of participation in mid-June, and if some spaces open up then we'll invite people from the wait list to join. 

This year we will once again be participating in Grow Another Row, and the excess veggies not taken home by garden members will go to this great organization which donates fresh veggies to soup kitchens. 

Plants & Plantings:
We know there were some great hits last year (everyone always loves the tomatoes!) and then there was some produce that maybe wasn't a huge hit (anyone love picking those okra?).  We have created a poll on the left side bar where everyone can vote for the favorites they want to see again this year.  Please vote by March 9th. If you have other ideas please comment on this post.

We also encourage all members to start their own seeds and bring the starts to the garden to plant, especially if there's something different that you'd like to see in the garden, a certain variety that you'd like to try growing or just want to start your own seeds but have no garden of your own to plant them in!

Upcoming Dates:
- March 6th-  Pre-sign up work day (designing the garden layout, discussing new ideas, painting signs, direct seeding greens, starts for transplants, cleaning out and organizing garden shed)
- April 24th- SIGN UP, composting, tilling, hanging signs
- May 1st- running drip tape, preliminary weeding, weed plastic
- May 8th- Planting Day!

Fun Things:
Since we want this to be a fun year, we are thinking of having more potlucks, perhaps a couple talks on various ag related subjects and show a movie or two.  These would all be on Tuesdays after the garden session.  We know there are quite a few kiddos that come to the garden, and if there's someone out there who wants to organize a small kids' plot, or even a coordinated dirt pile for kids to play in during work sessions, let us know!   If you have other ideas on how to make the garden more fun, interactive and community oriented, feel free to share your ideas in the comments section of the website!

Please email us with any questions or let us know if you would like to be a garden leader and/or waterer this summer.  We're looking forward to a great season together!

Your gardening gals,

Nina, Jenn and Ilana

Vote for your favorite veggies 2012!

Hello Garden Peeps!  Please vote for your favorite veggies etc on the poll to the right of this post before March 30th.  You may choose as many favorites as you want.  If you have other comments or suggestions (or strong dislikes...anyone else hate picking okra as much as i do?!), please feel free to post them below. We will try to make the garden as tailored to everyone's input as seeds/transplants/availability allows.