Gardening: Community gardens are a place to cultivate vegetables and friendships
Mid-March is the perfect time to start warm season vegetables indoors. Plants like tomato, eggplant and peppers started now will be ready to plant out at the end of May when we are less likely to get a frost. There is still time to start cool season vegetables like cabbage, onions, cauliflower and broccoli but don’t wait too long as these crops need cooler spring weather to grow properly.
The question then becomes where are you going to put these lovely little plants? If you don’t have a sunny place in a yard or on a deck, then it’s time to start looking for a plot in a local community garden near you. Spokane is blessed with more than 60 community gardens scattered all over the area and their garden committees are opening registrations to get a plot.
It’s easy to find a garden in your area by going to the Spokane Community Garden map at their website: spokanecommunity.org. Zoom into your area and then check on the bubble of the garden closest to you. There will be a phone number or a website you can contact for more information.
At Eden Community Garden at Covenant United Methodist Church in north Spokane, they are offering several sizes of beds from 4-by-8-foot beds to 4-by-12-foot beds and waist high boxes for folks who can’t bend down into a lower bed. For MJ Wood and the Eden garden committee it’s important to have a space that anyone can garden in. “The beds we don’t rent out are added to our food bank donation garden. Over the years we’ve donated an average of 2,000 pounds of produce a year.”
Over at Growing Neighbors, Johnny Edmondson and his team are adding more backyard gardens to their network of plots and projects in northwest Spokane. Over the last seven years, Growing Neighbors has developed over 70 plots in backyards and open land so people can grow food and build community. If you live in Spokane Valley, Resurrection Episcopal Church’s community garden (which I’m involved with) has open 4-by-16-foot boxes and large in-ground plots. They are located just west of Central Valley High School on Eighth Avenue.
Community gardens offer more than a place to plant vegetables. They provide a place to meet neighbors and build community with like-minded people. If you are a beginning gardener, it’s a great place to meet up with experienced gardeners who can teach you the exceptions to the garden information you’ve been sifting through on social media. In older neighborhoods that have lots of trees, a community garden can provide access to sunny places for your crops or plots that are big enough to handle a crop of corn or winter squash that send stems out in every direction.
If you are interested in starting a community garden, contact me and I can help you get organized and off on the right foot. Community gardens are 90% community and 10% garden so building a community around a garden idea is important. Contact me at the email below.