News and Events
News
Midtown Community Garden 2006
The sping weather outside is gorgeous and soon we will be enjoying delicous foods from our gardens! But, before that happens...
- Opening day for all Ypsilanti Community Gardens is Saturday, May 13!
- "Keep Our Garden Beautiful" Work Parties:
- Saturday June 10
- Saturday July 8
- Saturday August 12
ALL gardeners are strongly encouraged to attend the opening day meeting! Starting at 10:00 a.m., at your (Midtown) garden: Enjoy coffee and breakfast treats and meet fellow gardeners Find out your plot number (returning gardeners keep last year's plot) Learn what's available at the new Community Garden Resource Center - a new FREE resource for all community gardeners located at the Ypsi Senior Center on Congress Street Learn how to get your plot ready to plant! (Including tips on working compost into your plot and a low-tech way to keep weeds down on the paths around your plot) Find out how you can help with the Plant a Row for the Hungry plots at each garden Get your questions answered by garden stewards.
As a Midtown gardener, you are part of a community of gardeners in relatively close quarters. You are expected to make a meaningful contribution of time (at least two hours per month) to your gardening community to help keep the garden beautiful - especially from mid-summer on, when the weeds really threaten to overtake!
A few garden work parties are scheduled at Midtown to weed paths and perimeters, build compost bins, tend PAR plot, and do any other necessary maintenance. ALL gardeners need to sign up to attend at least one work party!
Dates for this summer are the 2nd Saturday of the month, from 9:00 - 11:00 a.m.:
Please mark your calendar now for at least one of the above dates. We will have a sign-up sheet available at opening day.
If we haven't already met, I look forward to meeting you in person on opening day. In the meantime, please contact me with any questions or concerns (ledsbeaken@aol.com, or 730-2212). If you have decided that you can't garden this year, please let me know immediately so we can offer the plot to someone else.
Happy garden planning! Lesley Chase
Returning gardeners are permitted to plant spring (i.e. frost resistant) plants in their plots before the opening day.
.- Gardening Classes: Washtenaw Community College has just released its spring continuing education offerings. Once again there are numerous gardening classes, including: Intro to Organic Vegetable Gardening Advanced Organic Vegetable Gardening Soil, Compost and Organic Fertilizers Organic Pest and Disease Management Landscaping with Native Plants Feng Shui for Yard and Garden .and many more. The Organic Gardening Certificate Program is available again and includes several of the above classes. Visit http://www.wccnet.edu/academicinfo/continuingeducation/lwl/ for more information or to register.
- Growing Hope Activities: (From Growing Hope's Executive Director Amanda Edmonds) I'm excited to let you know a few of the things in the works for 2006! In the spring we will launch our first Community Garden Training Institute, so that groups wanting to start gardens can learn how to successfully organize, erect, and manage them-- the course will focus on the nuts and bolts of developing sustainable community gardens. We're also launching a Garden Resource Center, which will feature a lending library of tools and information. As we continue to help erect greenhouses at five local schools, our focus will shift to helping the school communities integrate them into their classroom learning by developing training. We'll continue to teach cooking-nutrition-gardening Home-Grown Health classes at Head Start with MSU-Extension and other partners, and be exploring youth-serving partners with whom to offer Roots & Shoots youth garden program opportunities. We'll also be exploring micro-enterprise garden opportunities, with the hopes of developing models of garden-based entrepreneurism that low-income youth and community members can participate in. You'll also have a chance to hear from us more, as we'll be publishing a newsletter (in print and electronically) throughout the year. For more information about Growing Hope, visit www.growinghope.net.
- Updates and volunteer opportunities from the Midtown Community Garden: This year, we hope to construct a compost system for the garden, and we're looking for helpers. - We will also be moving some of the old sod around to level out the north side of the garden and possibly create a corn and squash, and pumpkin area. - If you have not yet registered but would like to, please email me back as soon as possible. - This year we are looking for volunteers at each garden to act as Plant a Row for the Hungry "stewards" for the growing season. Interested? Let me know!