We’re Expanding!

Our garden is expanding! Yesterday, Don Converse, Shawn Bard, and Jim Hines expanded the perimeter of our existing fence to make room for a couple dozed additional garden beds. It looks like we’ll have enough room for every person on our waiting list to be offered a membership!

Click here for Farmer Bob’s recap of the expansion.

Click here for Tom Oder’s article in the Dunwoody Patch.

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Master Plan

Consider contacting our mayor and council members to voice support for our community garden and its master plan.

Click here to view the complete master plan: Dunwoody_Community_Garden_Master_Plan-1

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Got Bamboo?

We are looking for locally harvested bamboo to use as tomato stakes and teepees. Bamboo, which is a type of grass, is a sustainable resource because it grows quickly without the need for fertilizers or pesticides. Bamboo is a natural fit in our organic garden.

Got a bamboo forest in your yard that needs taming? Please consider chopping a few bamboo stalks (4-8 feet is ideal), removing the leaves, and dropping them off at the garden. We have a pile started in the back right corner of the garden where you may leave them. (Contact us if you have a donation.)

Members, you are welcome to take bamboo from the pile for use in your garden plot.

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Generous $300 Donation

Thank you, Adrian Bonser, for a generous $300.00 donation earmarked for a portable greenhouse.

We look forward to adding a greenhouse to our garden by this fall after researching our options and consulting experts. Our plan is to create a greenhouse that is portable, sized appropriately for our garden, and replicable.

Why a greenhouse? A greenhouse could help extend our cool season harvest for the food pantry and/or communal beds and could provide a means to grow transplants in the spring for our charity beds, members, and/or fundraisers.

Want to help with this new project? Email membership@dunwoodygarden.org!

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Three Sisters Garden

On Saturday, our pumpkin team planted the Three Sisters Garden! And had fun doing it!

It was a family affair as members and volunteers of all ages marked spacing for the plants, weeded, amended the soil with compost, planted corn and pumpkins, and set out the soaker hoses. The kids were in charge of planting the corn and their own Halloween jack-o-lanterns and did a great job.

After the corn sprouts a few inches, the team will plant more pumpkins and the beans. Team members will then help keep weeds to a minimum and water during dry spells. The benefit of joining the team is first dibs on the harvest!

 

The Three Sisters Garden, which consists of corn, squash, and beans, is a traditional Native American practice and an eco-friendly gardening method. Read a great summary here. We are using many heirloom seeds, some with rich Native American history, such as the Cherokee Trail of Tears Beans and Seneca Red Stalker Corn.

Thanks to one of our new members, Stephanie, for donating all of the seeds for the Three Sisters Garden and sharing her deep gardening knowledge and enthusiasm.

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Help Needed on Saturday Morning

Mulch Madness Workday
This Saturday
8:30 – 10:30 am
Stop by for part or all of the time.

 We want to look good for our stop on next weekend’s Secret Garden Tour! Come out and help tidy up our garden.

 Weeds are growing again! This week’s rainstorm not only gave those thirsty weeds a big gulp, but also washed away a lot of mulch that helped deter their growth. Good news: The rain helped our vegetables look green and full, and a new load of wood chips are now located extra close to the garden for everyone’s convenience.

A Path or a Meadow? Yikes! Weeds are Growing!

 

Bob Lundsten and Don Converse donate several hours each week to general garden upkeep. (And Bob doesn’t even have a personal plot!) Let’s thank these guys by making sure they don’t burn out. If you’ve never participated in a workday, then you’ve been missing out on a nice time.  Workdays aren’t just sweat and toil; you will undoubtedly meet someone new and learn something interesting. (I do every single time.)

Can’t make it to the workday? Then all you need to do is take 30 minutes before the garden tour to put a few loads (maybe 6) of mulch around the perimeter of your garden bed. Then you’ll be weed free. Want to make it last long-term?  Just rake back the mulch and put newspaper or cardboard down first. Feeling ambitious? Give the hard-working food pantry team a hand by mulching a charity bed. (Pantry beds are marked with white signs with words such as charity and love.)

What to bring, if possible: newspapers, cardboard, a wheelbarrow, and/or a pitchfork. And, of course, a bottle of water and your enthusiasm.

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Growing Jack-o-Lanterns

We’re looking for a team of volunteers to help plant and maintain the pumpkin patch!

Bob Lundsten prepped the patch to the right of our garden by tilling it, adding truckloads of compost, mulching it, and fertilizing it. The hardest work is done. Thanks, Bob, for several hours of labor!

Rather than plant a mono-crop of pumpkins, we’d like to plant a Three Sisters Garden, which is a traditional Native American practice and also an eco-friendly practice. The three sisters are corn, squash (pumpkins, in our case), and beans. The beans provide nitrogen to the soil, which the corn needs, and in turn, the corn provides a trellis for the beans. The squash’s prickles wards off predators and its broad leaves act as living mulch to help deter weeds and hold moisture in the soil.

Here’s a great link about the Three Sisters Garden:
http://www.reneesgarden.com/articles/3sisters.html

The Team’s Contribution:

1. Plant the ornamental corn.
2. Once the corn has sprouted and established itself, plant the pumpkins and beans.
3. Water during dry spells. We plan to run soaker hoses through the patch so that watering simply requires you to fasten the hose to the main faucet (you’d get a key) and turn it on. And, of course, turn it back off.
4. Make sure weeds don’t take over. The wide squash leaves and the wood chips should help keep weeds to a minimum, so this task should only involve pulling or smothering a handful of weeds from time to time.

The larger the team, the smaller the individual commitment! Oh, and the perk for pitching in? You get first dibs on the harvest. Kids can help too! Contact us if you want to help.

Coming in November: A pumpkin smashing party where you bring the jack-o-lanterns you grew back to the garden to add to the compost bin. The compost, once aged, will be used to fertilize the next year’s Three Sisters Garden. That’s life, full circle.

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The Flower Garden is Planted

The flowers are planted and mulched thanks to a great team!  Members of our community garden worked alongside members of the Dunwoody Garden Club (DGC) to beautify before Lemonade Days.

Jeff, Ann, and Sally

Donna, Jeff, and Maria

Thanks to our members: Ann, Sally, Tracy, Jessica, Cindi, and Lynn lent hands and shovels to the project. Karen C designed the flower garden and supervised the plan’s implementation. Don and Bob picked up and unloaded a couple truckloads of compost for the project.

Thanks to the Dunwoody Garden Club members: Donna B, Maria, and Betty participated in the Mulching Party. Theresa from DGC spent time last Saturday to help with the Planting Party. 

Thanks to Volunteer Extraordinaire: Jeff O. He can be seen whenever and wherever there is work to be done, such as Thursday at Donaldson House and Friday at Community Garden. Although he doesn’t have a plot, he’s pitched in for numerous work projects at our garden. 

Thanks to the Dunwoody Garden Club for the generous donation of $300.00 earmarked for this beautification project.

Now that the flower garden is planted, look forward to it flourishing and spreading over the summer.

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Flower Garden and Rain Garden Pictures

The garden buzzed this morning with members and volunteers working on projects: the rain garden and the raised flower beds.

The Rain Garden was designed by Lindsey Man to help divert standing water from the street into the creek.

Don Working on the Rain Garden

Rod Digging the Rain Garden

The flower garden was designed by Karen Converse, one of our members, and was funded by a $300 grant from Dunwoody Garden Club.

Planting the Flower Bed

Our New Member Pitching In

Flower Volunteer

Nancy Planting Flowers

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Turnips in Bloom and Other Pictures

The garden is blooming! Check out these photos from our garden plots and hedgerow.

Turnips in Bloom

Ann & Dominic's Lush Plot

Arugula in Bloom

Blueberry Hedgerow Blossoming

Strawberry Flowers

Crimson Clover

Rapeseed (Canola) in Bloom

Doolittle Family Garden

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