'Nuurr

Yesterday, the garden received around 40 cubic yards of wonderful fluffy Edaleen Dairy compost manure. This is the stuff that has most of the liquid squeezed out, leaving behind only the solids. Thanks Gerald and Ralph at Edaleen for this pile of ........!

This stuff will breakdown real fast and provide a great foundation for the overall garden.

Shortly after it was delivered, Eldon again came over in his tractor and moved the compost around the plot area and then tilled it in. It looks great! Thanks Eldon!!

Click to enlarge pictures.








Below you'll see what the garden looks like after Eldon's professional touch. Thanks Eldon!!



Also, he turned the pre-existing yard waste (grass clippings and leaves) that was in the eco-block pit [see in background]. Now that stuff will start to accelerate toward good compost.

Joy!

Photos on Display

Melissa took some interesting pictures of the shed after the clean-up work Saturday. I thought we should post several. Very good work Melissa!

Click on image to enlarge.

De Shed Is Empty

Thanks to Larry V. and his trusty ole Dodge and trailer, and a hardy crew of folk from the neighborhood and from Sonlight, our little shed is now free of all that "stuff" that has been gathering in it for decades.

Isn't this beautifully rustic, brings back the good old days of 1929.




A before picture...





Another before picture....











Next is to get a plan to fix this little gem up as our garden Center. I propose that neighbors who will use the garden and members of Sonlight, we jointly work on this building and spruce it up. Between sweet-equity, in-kind donations and just plain purchasing power, perhaps we can make this into a multi-million dollar retirement home for AIG bonused executives...that is for us to charge high-end rent for sure!

Jeff

Alice Waters' Crusade For Better Food

If you haven't seen a recent piece by 60-Minutes on Alice Water's, take joy and see her drive for organic food and community gardens and "slow food"...its wonderful!

[Sorry for the lead-in commercial...]



More videos and a wonderful "sloooww food" breakfast...click here

First Till of the Year!

Thanks to Eldon H. and his farm tractor, we got the river silt tilled in Monday morning. Yeah!

Now comes the other series of compost-organics that will be tilled as well. Soon we'll have a very good start with rich soil for the early spring-crowd of veggies.

Thanks a ton Eldon!

Jeff

Master Gardener Training Coming to Us...

[Below is a note I received from WSU Extension's Jill Cotton. How cool is this! We will figure out a way to find out who wants to sign up for what...soon.]



The WSU master gardener volunteers are available this spring to help home gardeners grow vegetables in their community garden plots. We are working on developing presentations on these subjects:

From the Ground Up team:
* Soils, fertilization, and soil preparation styles
* Compost and Lasagna garden style
* Planning and siting the garden, and useful tools
* Useful structures; raised beds, trellises and supports
* Seeds, selecting and growing starts

Grow Your Own Groceries team:
* Planting: transplanting, furrows, Square-Foot, Bio intensive
* Growing, cultivation and care, weed and insect control
* Harvest and seed saving

If you would like to schedule any or all of these volunteers to help out at your community garden, please contact me with a date and time, and please forward this email to anyone else you know of who could use our help ! I'll look forward to hearing from you!

Jill Cotton
Master Gardener Program Coordinator
WSU Whatcom County

Spread it around

This past Saturday, a wonderful man got on his tractor, worked many hours, spreading around the river silt that was delivered by the county. In the rain and cold, this sweet man faithfully served our north city community by helping us in our efforts to develop the community garden.

Here's the look of "spread-around-river-silt"...click to zoom larger.


Thank you dear one, who wishes to remain anonymous!

Okay next, we start bringing in various composts and organics. If thing dry up enough so we can get a tractor/tiller in on the site, we'll till in this added material into the silt and earth that is there now. Layer by layer, tilling by tilling, we'll gradually get a really good foundation for our garden.

I was out there today, digging some test holes at various locations. A good sign: Lots of earthworms! I think "I felt the earth move under my feet..." sorry Carole King, different context. But there ARE a lot of good guys worming their way around in the Good Earth.

Jeff

What's Happening...

What's in the works or happening ... you may ask? Well here's what.

I have contacted several community citizens who have access to earth moving equipment, asking if they would move the 49 yards of river silt on the garden plot site. That should be done within the next week.

Have arranged the use of a dump truck to get some free compost for the garden, and haul it there once the silt is spread. Then will get more purchased compost from local source. Also some manure from local dairy. With all this on the site, then we'll get a tractor-tiller go over the whole scene and mix up all this good stuff.

For the fun of it, I thought I'd draw up a draft proposal for how the whole 3/4 acre area with the garden might look. See below. [Click on the picture for larger sized viewing]















Of course this will be discussed and other ideas at the upcoming organizing group that will be meeting Saturday, March 21st.

This is fun!

Jeff

Move That Dirt!

I am asking around for some in-kind help with moving the river silt we received last week to the final garden site. What is needed is to get this initial resource spread out over the 4 tenths acre that will be our garden plot area.

Then I am trying to obtain some really good composted cow manure, and put it on this area. Once we have these, we will try to find an tractor roto-tiller and till up the area well. From this we then can begin to lay out individual plots.

So if anyone knows of a business or operation that has front-end loaders and back-hoes, this would be sweet. Let me know and we'll ask if they can help.

Thanks,
Jeff

Grand Design for our Beautiful Garden

If anyone knows of someone who has the ability to produce professional landscape planning blueprints, we sure could use their in-kind (donated) assistance.

Since we are starting from scratch, fresh scratch that is, this is a good time to have an overall well-thought out design, layout and plan developed. From this we will be able to methodically develop our garden and all aspects with it.

So if you know of someone, or if you are this SOMEONE, let me know and we'll explore how to best use this community asset.

Jeff

Work Crew Needed

Saturday, March 21st, at 9 AM we need a work crew to help clean out the old shed on the site of the community garden. It won't take a lot of time, but many hands make light work!

So to those who have or will sign up to be part of the community garden, let me know if you will be there.

We may also have some other activities linked that morning to this. It may be work related, or perhaps some training/learning on gardening or the like.

Anyway mark it in your calendar, RSVP to me, and off we go.

Jeff

Things are Dumping

I hit the brakes, screeched to a halt, right there on the Hannegan, just north of the Nooksack River bridge. What did I see? Gold. Yes gold the kind of stuff that grows great vegetables and other things. Tons of river silt being scooped up by the County, Whatcom that is.

I asked the traffic control gal “Where’s this all going?” Response, “I’m not sure.” “Who’s in-charge here?” “There in that truck over there, ask Brian.”

I did.

Fast-forward…a couple hours…

After some form-filling, protocol stuff which Rana at Sonlight had to endure, we started to receive on our garden plot wonderful loamy silt river sediment. This is the stuff of legend…rich, flood-plain soil and organics that keep much of the world alive.

So we should have within the next couple days around 45 cubic yards of this river silt on our site.



Thanks to the Whatcom County Public Works folks: Brian, Orv and Christy.

And more thanks to the City of Lynden Public Works folks: Laurie, Jean and Mark.

And still much more special thanks to Rana at Sonlight for dropping everything on her schedule so she could make scads of phone calls, run down to City Hall, faxing forms here and there, rush out the “dump” site, making all things connect and wonderful. All this so we can have our dirt and play in it.

Thanks Rana and friends.

Jeff and Community Garden Green-Thumbs

So Fun…So Inspired!

There we were, Saturday February 21, 2009, 11:30 AM, in New York Pizza, the 29 of us. There we were casting vision, dreaming child-like thoughts (sugar-plum dreams), what it would mean for people like us to get together around a community garden. What a time we had!

If only we could snap our fingers and all those sugar-plum ideas were NOW and a reality. But they will. I think all of us sense that if that should happen, without all the planning, preparation and hard work, it would be accomplishment without community. More of a commodity, something transferred vs. beauty and common interest stuff that ties good people with good cheer – TOGETHER.

So we refuse to snap our fingers. Instead we choose to get our palms blistered with hard work, bumping into each other, shoulder to shoulder – building something that will be a joy to us AND our neighbors.

But for now: no fingers, no blisters, just green thumbs. Click on the first picture below. If you squint and strain your eyes hard enough, you will see that ALL of us have something in common. Our green thumbs. Hey!! What a concept...“Green-Thumbers”


Keep clicking to enlarge each picture.



Who won the Oscar for their "hamming" performance below?






To recount some of our dreams and details for this new life together in OUR GARDEN, here they be:

• We will be organic
• We will co-learn together and teach each other
• We will share as much as we possibly can (tools, seeds, etc.)
• We will have fun
• We will not only grow our own veggie plots
• We will grow at least a squash and a corn communal plot for all
• We will have plot sizes like 4X4’, 10X20’ and 10X10’, and our communal plots
• We will plan and plant the rest of the garden to be a thing of beauty
• We train ourselves and encourage our community join in on the learning
• We will draw the youth into this venture
• We will assist those elderly or handicapped to join in with us
• We will take field trips to Hovander together
• We will thank Sonlight church for the use of their land
• We will just hang out in OUR GARDEN and talk, sing, dream more and have a great time!
• We got to get to work and make all this happen.
• Did I miss anything? Surely I did!

So what are the next steps?

Ten of us said we’d work as a short-term organizing team. This so we can pull together more detail plans, logistics and resources to get things off the ground. Look for me to call upon this group to “take things up a notch!” (who said that?!)…baam!

Watch for more postings for calls to action or being informed of what’s happening.

A personal note: After we all separated and went our own ways, I went home, poured a homemade stout in a glass, went out into my greenhouse at home (it was so nice a warm), sat on a bucket...and buzzed with the sense: "I want to celebrate"! No the beer caused not the buzz. It was thoroughly a moment of: I wanted to just shout for joy that all these good people are new friends of mine! They have this desire to make our little world in our little town a tad bit better-together. This is so good. Thank you my new and dear friends!

Jeff

PS: The one who really figured out the "Speeking...Spelling" thing, well you get the golden "ha-ha" star for the day!

First Meeting Draws Near

As of noon, today Thursday, Feb. 19, we have a total of 26 people who said they will be attending our first organizing meeting. This is awesome! There are a total of 18 households who form this first initial burst of excitement. Let's keep it going!! We would have more people there Saturday, but 2 of the households can't make it -- this time.

Below is my proposed Agenda for this first meeting. I feel it is always good for people to know what sort of direction such meetings are headed, before you show up. This way you can be better prepared and know what is likely to be discussed or decided.

I hope the below is something that energizes you, and helps get our community garden going!

* Introductions
* Short stories of personal gardening experiences: Good, Bad or Ugly
* A description of overall plan at this stage: Role of Sonlight, Role of the Community
* Expressions of “What you dream this could be?”
* How do we take things from here?
* Do we need an organizing group or committee?
* What sort of things do we need to consider while forming this garden?
* How about a name?
* What have I missed that you want to talk about?
* Fill out the “Sign me up…”
* Next meeting
* Let’s go look at the land!

See you Saturday. This is going to be fun!

Jeff