Weeding and Expanding our Community Garden

Last night, I joined some neighbors for an evening of weeding and planning for our community garden – named the Grassy Knoll. (I wish the planners had chosen a different name – since the name they chose will be forever linked with the death of JFK for some of us. But, it is descriptive of the location.) You can imagine the looks of horror when I tell people I’m going down to the Grassy Knoll to weed or water or whatever. I avoid those looks now by just saying “the community garden” instead.

I didn’t take photos of the garden when we planted it, but did last night. One of the neighbors said that the plan for the garden was a wave but it looks more like a heart. I sort of agree with her! The sculpture in the background is called “Wind in the Trees.” We were surprised at how BIG the plants were since they were planted in May from tiny starts or transplants. We chose native prairie plants for a low maintenance garden. Weeding went really quickly with the number of people who joined us -- even in such a big space!

We apparently have some money left in the community garden bucket, so we started thinking about an expansion of the wave heart, which we’d plant in September so the plants have time to get their roots established before the winter. It’s lots of work, but makes the space look much more friendly and welcoming. So, it’s worth the effort.

Community Gardens

In my friend, Annie’s neighborhood, neighbors are using the space where a house used to be to grow food. In a neighborhood by the University, neighbors have planted perennials in a formerly bare and uncared for place. And, in more and more schools, teachers and members of the community are helping to plant gardens so kids can both learn about growing food and get fresh vegetables in their diets.

I have been aware of community gardens for food production for a couple of years. A friend of mine has a plot in a community garden near where we work. We walk over there at lunch sometimes to weed or water. He talks about the garden association that oversees the plots and provides the infrastructure (water, wheelbarrows, mowers). And, this year, I went to the kick off meeting for him because he was out of town. It was really interesting to find out that there are hundreds of people who are passionate about growing their own food but don’t have the space in their own yards and therefore use community gardens!

In May, I was among the folks in my neighborhood who dug and planted a “beautification” community garden. I was not part of the planning, but understand we worked with the city and community garden organizers to determine the scope and location of the project. (I just showed up for the grunt work.) The plants are small now, but next year, people who drive by this particular spot will be greeted by waves of native prairie flowers and grasses!

I got a note from one of the Vacation Bible School teachers at the church a month or so ago asking if they could use the garden plots at the church to teach the kids about vegetables! Of course! So, they planted the garden together before school let out and in August when they have VBS, the kids will harvest the goodies they planted. I think it’s so cool the teachers wanted to do this!

Have I piqued your interest in Community Gardening? If so, there’s a great web site called Gardening Matters that can give you lots of information. And, if you want to see the number of community gardens in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, click the map! Wow.

Natives

The city of Minneapolis offers a class on creating rain gardens and planting natives in your yard. I took it last year, not expecting much, frankly. I was pleasantly surprised not only by the quality of the content but also by the credentials of the presenter. I didn’t elect to plant a rain garden – I’m using rain barrels instead – but I did elect to plant some natives in all of my gardens and all natives in two of my gardens, including coneflowers, rudbekia, liatris, asters, monarda, and anise hyssop. The colors are fabulous and they attract birds, butterflies, and bees.

“What’s a Native?!” you ask. Well. A native is a plant that has its origins in your region. These are typically great plants because they will thrive with very little care. (Trust me on this one.) And, they’re typically resistant to pests. I don’t know a lot about natives in other regions, but in my region, the natives are an awesome way to get the water way down deep into the earth, which is where we want the water to go.

The most fascinating piece of information I learned from the rain garden workshop was that roots of native prairie plants are on average twice the depth as their height above ground. This means that if you have a plant that’s two feet tall, the roots will be at least four feet deep! And, a portion of the roots die off every year, leaving straw-like tubes for the water to run into, getting the water deep into the earth, reducing both runoff and erosion! How cool is that?!

And, lest you think that only prairie plants are native to Minnesota, here’s a list of natives for prairie, meadow, woodlands and wetlands from the University of Minnesota Extension service.