My latest project - a community garden

[cactus]

I've been busy for the past several months working on a new project at our church - a community vegetable garden. I was planning on having soil delivered for the raised beds last week, but we were rained out. Hopefully I'll have the 40+ yards of soil brought in this week and we can finish out the beds. There are vegetables to be planted!

I'm hoping to hand off most of the vegetable garden responsibilities soon (but keep my hand in the grapes, berries and compost) and move on to my next community project - a meditation orchard. I'm really looking forward to working on that.
I also have a couple of soil science projects going that I need to finish and write up. Nothing game-changing like Andy's working on, but fun for me nonetheless.

Here's the blog where I've been tracking the progress of the garden: bauucgarden.org

[MorpheusPA]

Way cool and great photos! I want to see some more pix as the garden develops (and no, it's not a garden yet until it's completely full of plants!)

[cactus]

(and no, it's not a garden yet until it's completely full of plants!)

[whiney-voice]But I have green twigs in the ground![/whiney-voice]

[MorpheusPA]

Oh. Carry on then, close enough.

[xapabwa]

Congratulations - that's quite an undertaking. The best part about this in my opinion is a quote from your blog, "We had workdays where 5 year-olds and 70+ year-olds were working side-by-side building raised beds". That's beautiful!

[cactus]

So today I got hit with this...

Gardener: "Did all the beds get the same quality soil? Because my tomatoes looked fine when I planted them before going to London for three weeks, but now they look kinda yellow. The bed next to mine has really good looking plants, so I think there might be a difference in the soil."

Me: "All the soil came from the same pile. Did you add any kind of fertilizer at all when you planted? I happen to know your neighbor did."

Gardener: "No. I never have to fertilize at home - and those tomatoes look fine. I thought you were buying good soil for these beds."

What am I suppose to do? Am I suppose to hold the hand of every old lady who wants her tomatoes to flourish while she's off traveling? When people plant 20 watermelon seeds on a 6-inch grid, am I obligated to point out the folly? If someone expects new plantings to succeed with once-a-week watering, should I offer the pathetic, wilted transplants some water on day 5? If someone plants pole beans on a 10-inch trellis, or starts snap peas in April, should I call them fools? Improper watering, improper fertilizing, improper plant selection - it's all visible. But since this is an allotment garden, everyone should be responsible for their own plot. I'm expecting that this first season will be a "learning season", and maybe those who stick with it through next year will be receptive to learning a bit more.

I don't really need any answers, I just needed to vent. Hopefully nobody from my church reads this forum.

[MorpheusPA]

"Sometimes things just fail" --especially when you try to plant 15 plants in space for two.

"It hasn't rained much this year" --and you haven't been here to water.

"We got a frost" --like we do every year at this time, dipstick.

[xapabwa]

You'd be surprised at the number of people who think that all there is to gardening is just sticking the little roots in the dirt. Perhaps the church could offer a gardening 101 seminar to give those interested the basics - like plants need nutrients, water and sun. and also a brief overview about alloting the proper space for whatever you're planting - i.e., pole beans grow up and need something tall to climb on and watermelons sprawl on the ground and need lots and lots of space and are more of a field crop than a community garden crop. If not a seminar, perhaps a flyer with the basics would go a long way.