On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 13:59:28 GMT, "brooklyn1"
> wrote:

>"modom (palindrome guy)" wrote:
>>
>> The community garden plugs along. We'll plant this spring or I'll die
>> trying.
>>
>> Yesterday Bobby from the local hardware and feed store delivered
>> enough 12-foot 2 x 12's to make 35 12 x 4-foot raised beds.
>
>
>I hope all that lumber is pressure treated, and the newer safer treated
>lumber will begin to rot in like ten years, sooner if your area is generally
>wet. I think for a community garden a much better system would be to have
>like 10' X 10' plots staked out directly on the ground... in so many ways it
>will be infinitely simpler to maintain. For the cost of all that lumber a
>tremendous quantity of topsoil could have been hauled in, and each fall and
>spring so much easier to amend and till.
>
We know what we're doing. Besides a professor of ag science and the
director of the county extension service, members of our group include
retired farmers, a certified master gardener, and an expert in drip
irrigation systems.

>So what is the purpose of this venture, what crops are planned?
>
Mission: Our mission is to support community gardening by building
community participation, civic pride, and awareness of benefits to the
environment and individual health. We will provide opportunities to
learn about food production, generate produce for individual
participants and the impoverished, and demonstrate sustainable land
stewardship.

Individual members of the community will lease plots and grow what
they want in them with the advice of the master gardener and the
county extension service.

An established local group called Cereal Crops Research, Inc. will
plant and maintain larger plots of corn, beans, peas, edamame, etc.

A workshop on composting and selecting tomato varieties appropriate to
our soil and climate is scheduled in the coming weeks. Discussion is
underway regarding cooking and preserving classes in the large kitchen
of a nearby church. Other events may happen as the project develops.
--

modom