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Janet Bostwick[_2_] Janet Bostwick[_2_] is offline
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Default Report from this part of Texas


"modom (palindrome guy)" > wrote in message
...
> 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

My daughter and her husband (both have doctorates in several tree, biology,
sustainable farming areas as well as time spent in Africa and Brazil
teaching ) are venturing into neighborhood gardening in a big way this year.
Not near as big as you, but I don't think we're talking about the same
amount of land being available. They just had 18 yards of mushroom compost
delivered. Their challenge is varmits.
Janet