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brooklyn1 brooklyn1 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


This sounds like a huge undertaking. What will be the rent for each of your
48 sq ft plots? How much land is involved in total, and who owns it or is
it donated? Are there plans to add more raised beds? Good luck.