Sometimes you have to improvise

Our garden is a work in progress.  This year warm spring weather arrived in February.  It has been quite dry, so we took advantage of those conditions to begin planting.  We have planted a variety of seeds to date.  So far only the snow peas, which were planted first during February, have germinated and started to grow.
The first week of March we harvested our winter onions and started planting more seeds as well as cabbage and broccoli transplants. The next week the weather changed, as a winter storm was forecast to hit on the next weekend.
On the following Saturday we went to the garden and found the cabbage and broccoli plants for most part getting established with some signs of scorching from frost.  We were concerned they would not be hardy enough to withstand the winter conditions in the forecast. We had not foreseen this possibility, and so didn't have any covers available to cover the beds.
So, we improvised by using plastic shopping bags to place over the individual plants, with dirt around the edges to prevent them from blowing away.  During the next five days, we were hit with winter cold and strong winds that dropped the temps into the low 20s.
Fortunately our plants survived under the bags. After we took bags off, we experimented with some home made cloches made from plastic bottles and covers.
The next day the plants under them seemed okay, but we took them off as we were concerned they might get too hot under the strong sun as temperatures were climbing into the upper 50s.
Lesson learned: improvisation is okay, but preparation is better.
Cloches need close monitoring and work better for a back yard garden. We will need to get proper covers to have on hand for the beds.

Inspiring examples: balancing individual plots and communal beds in one community garden

Community gardens share many common purposes, but achieve these using diverse approaches. At the Dig-In, I learned about three gardens that combine the best features of the two most common types of community gardens, plot garden and cooperative garden. In this way, they are building community while providing harvest for both gardeners and for those with limited food access.

The availability of individual plots is attractive to some gardeners, allowing diversity of methods, crops and working hours. The gardeners share methods, harvest and participate in group activities. Communal plots provide an important option for those who don’t want the responsibility of their own plots and/or want to garden alongside others. Both strategies can provide harvest for the needy. 

One of these hybrid gardens, the community garden of Asbury United Methodist Church has many features in common with Koinonia Garden. It is located on church property, which impacts appearance requirements and working hours. It is entirely volunteer run. Similar to Koinonia, their gardeners receive produce, but from their individual plots. In contrast to Koinonia, they harvest their donated produce from both the individual plots (50% of harvest) and 100% of common plots.

This garden began in 2011 with 37 5' x 20' raised beds constructed at the site of a former baseball field; all plots were leased the first year. The next year, they built additional raised beds (due to demand; there is a waiting list for beds) and communal beds. So the Asbury garden became a hybrid garden of both individual and common garden beds. The yearly lease contract requires that gardeners donate 50% of harvest, meet appearance requirements and provide their own seed, supplements, compost, etc. The leasing fee ($25/plot) pays the water bill. Those leasing individual beds participate, with other volunteers, in garden workdays and harvest teams.  These teams gather harvest for the needy twice weekly.
-- Kris Weigle

Relevant links:
Dig-In presentations
Asbury Community Garden
Hope Community Garden
Camden Street Garden

Opening Day

It was a bright, cold--32 degrees at 9:00am this past Saturday March 4, official opening day for KOINONIA. Winter trash lay against the deer fencing and flowering broccoli sheltered cabbage moths. Weeks earlier, in anticipation of this day, supplements had been added to the soil according to soil samples taken late last fall. Our little field had been tilled and composting will ramp up in the coming weeks.
 
With 7 participants on Saturday the trash was cleaned up, old cole plants composted, cabbage and broccoli transplants planted, kale seeded, onions harvested, mushrooms soaked and all was watered.  

We also harvested our winter onions, to make room for spring crops.

In coming weeks we will continue to plant cool weather seeds such as swiss chard, beets, lettuces and others.

--PAXPLH