Today I (Jayne) came across a great site at communitygarden.org that shows you step by step how to create a community garden. This year, I am planning the plot (on Longfellow Creek) and I hope it will be even easier to grow and harvest food there. Since we already have the site already prepped and some of the seeds, we have a head start. I plan to use their website through the season to ask questions of veteran community gardeners about the plan, the food, organizing community members, and whatever else comes up for us. I think it will be useful for inspiration this year. We have been wanting to grow food specifically for the food bank, and to grow enough to put some away for the winter. I hope this is the year we can make all of that happen- My winter food bills are way too much!

The "Pea Row" is weeded and trellises are in the ground but need to be strung up. Jeremiah and Arlo got some pea seeds from a farmer friend of theirs and they are going to soak them and we will plant them soon. After we weed the next row, we will locate all the volunteer kale and chard plants and transplant them. After that, the priority is lettuce. I sent a letter to Tomato Bob requesting seeds from them for the project, but I haven't heard back from them yet- They are having crazy sales right now and all through March of 25 cent vegetable packs! March Madness alright with a different selection each week!

Jeremiah has been working on chopping down all the blackberries and the willow tree in front of the fence. That is the spot the tree trimming service used to dump the chips. We would like that to happen again as soon as possible. We also want the truck to back in and dump chips all the way down the middle of the garden path so we can spread them out to the rows easier.
Phil has some wood fence panels that we are going to use to rebuild the North side of the fence, and as soon as we can, we will borrow a tiller and till up 1/2 of the garden for cover crop. (We will use this part of the land for this Fall's crops, and cover the other part for the Winter.)
I am looking for the best price on hoop house plastic, and will get the re-bar and PVC Pipe from McLendon's or Home Depot to make a hoop house for growing tomatoes this Summer, and chard for the Fall.