Community Gardening: a terribly perfect idea
Garden plots come in many different forms, think backyard gardens, kitchen gardens, or perennial gardens. As a home gardener, I have all of those. Each area, has a different goal but each brings the thrill of seeing the miracle of growth and life. One garden plot I had not pondered was a community Garden.
Last winter as Jannell and I were brainstorming ways we could show how to garden with wool, we thought about our local community garden. The Forest Street community garden runs along a great walking/bike trail in the downtown area. Wouldn’t this be a great spot to educate about Woolly Belly Pellets? What’s one more spot to grow things?
Forest Street Community Garden is located in downtown Eau Claire
For $35, we rented a 20ft by 20ft seasonal plot. This community garden also has an herb garden, a shared garden, a youth garden and a garden run by the local university. All we needed to bring was a fence for the Wisconsin deer and rabbits plus plants, seeds and of course, wool!
Bring on May and here comes regret, I probably shouldn’t speak for Jannell but I know we were both a bit overwhelmed. A community garden plot was a terrible idea. I’d just finished lambing which included 5 bottle lambs, my home gardens were not planted, my perennial beds not weeded or mulched, Woolly Belly Pellet events had been really busy and we were now planting another 20 x 20 garden 15 minutes from my house? What were we thinking?
Too late to change course, we had to get digging. Our plot needed an initial good weeding as we opted for no tilling of our area. Both Jannell and I are no-till gardeners and try to keep soil as undisturbed as possible. That said, the weeding was still intense! Once weeded, all of our plants and seeds were planted with Woolly Belly Pellets. We used both Sheepy Shreds and full fleeces for mulch to show the differences using them. We left a part of the garden unmulched BUT two weeks later the weeds once again became very intense in those areas. We re-weeded and mulched those areas in early June. We watered a few times a week through May and the first week of June but haven’t watered since. We can thank Mother Nature as well as all of the wool for that!
We mulched with full fleeces for over ½ of the garden. We used Sheepy Shreds for the rest. This was after our first day of planting.
We made it through that first week of June and started to feel that gardening thrill; Maybe this wasn’t such a horrible idea.
Our community garden plot was for educating others but instead we learned so much more:
The “community” in community gardening is fantastic. We have met so many passionate gardeners. Each time we are at our plot, we end up chatting to a fellow gardener, biker, or walker who shares how or what they grow. We’ve had encouraging "praise" for using wool in our plot and many discussions about improving soil with organic materials. All agree on the importance of mulch and love that wool mulch really conserves water.
Community gardening is an inexpensive way to grow a lot of food and flowers. The Forest Street garden is not only a beautiful location but they have all the tools, compost, weed pick up, water and courtesy mowing around the gardens. Extra food and flowers can be shared with the community. We have lots of Red Hopi Amaranth for wool and yarn dye if anyone is interested.
Community gardens are good for the soul and spirit, a nice place to get earthy and disconnect from life's stressors. Jannell and I end every gardening time with a stroll around all the gardens. We love to see the varieties of plantings and creative garden plots.
While initially weeding we left a few volunteer plants from gardeners past. This has been way more cool than annoying. Taking over a past garden plot is like a treasure hunt! Our rogue, now almost 20 foot tall, sunflowers boast their glorious heads of seeds to the sky, almost like a race to see who can get the highest before they start to hang their crowns for us to harvest. We aren’t sure who's plot had the tallest sunflower, but we were competitive!
It's also a fun place to dream about the perfect flower garden- maybe we were fairies in a past life? Our favorite plants from this year’s garden include our gothic chocolate sunflowers, the Red Hopi Amaranth, Zinnias, and long beans. We’ve harvested bush beans, cucumbers, and beets. The herbs we planted grew well. Jannell likes to grow mint although I’m seeing future frustrations with its crazy growth!
The wool allowed us to grow this space with our busy schedules. We didn’t have to worry about going downtown to water. The plants have loved the slow fertilizing effect and the plot turned out beautiful (if we do say so ourselves!) but it is a bit over planted.
The sunflowers have been amazing. This is one of our rogue ones.
Our community garden plot was the most terribly perfect idea and we cannot wait to do it again. Join us!