Organic Compost Source

Community Gardeners,

Thanks  to Sharon Bright’s recommendation, we now have a source of organic compost sold in bulk:

Cierech Greenhouses
23 Winters Rd, Phillipsburg, NJ 08865
(908) 859-1899

The cost is $30 per yard (and a dump truck holds about 8 yards). The only downside is that they do not deliver, so we need to find someone with a truck.
Contact Mike Jordan if you’re interested!

Memories from 2009 :)

This beautiful collage was made by Denise Galarza Sepúlveda (in plots #28 and 29). She tried to include an image from every garden space in the 2009 season.  Click on the image to enlarge it.

Community Gardening–Come start!!

Hey everyone!!

Many gardeners have begun to work in their plots and they’re lookin’ GREAT!!  Sorry I haven’t updated in awhile..I’ve been at the garden lots! 🙂

Here’s some pictures from about a week ago (so much has changed since!).

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The fence is complete–the gate is a little difficult to get open.  We’ll try to fix it soon!

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Ryan family plot–lookin’ good! 🙂

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Reiter family plot–the very first one planted! 🙂

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Poor Jodie Frey’s (and friends!) plot–two groundhog holes, but they haven’t come back yet!

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First row of plots.

And a couple students and me started planting the large 1-acre plot last Tuesday.  Here’s some pictures from that day..

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The FIRST seeds. 🙂  It was some yellow sweet corn.

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Pooja Shah and Scott Stinner workin’ hard!

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And we worked REALLY hard! 🙂

Anyways…feel free to get started out there!  I’m not sure what the key situation is for the parking area.  If you haven’t received it yet, you should be getting one soon! The water situation is still under-construction, but will hopefully be done soon!  Sounds like there’s supposed to be rain in the next couple weeks too! Phew!

Have a great holiday weekend!!

Jenn

Fence Building

This morning a group of gardeners were out at the field to finish the fence. John Wilson lead the crew in stringing the deer busters mesh along the posts that were set last week. As John stapled, several of us pulled the fence material taut and pulled it along the fence line to have it ready. As a section was finished, the taller guys used black tie straps to secure the fence material to the line along the top.

Once we had two sides complete, a few others came behind and began trenching and burying the bottom edge of the fence material. This should help prevent the smaller critters from crawling under the perimeter.

While all this was going on, Jenn and others began marking out the individual plots and setting the garden signs. They used the cut ends from the posts to help mark the boundaries better.

The crew attaching the fencing material caught up to the other group who was finishing attaching the wire along the top of the posts.

Saturday Mornin’ Gardening

Hey everybody,

We got a LOT of work done today.  All the fence posts are in, we cut them to be about even height (~7 foot), and hung wire around the top.

We had a lot of enthusiatic help from students, faculty and staff including John Wilson, Cliff Reiter, Annette Diorio, Art Kney and his daughter Elise, LEAP/SEES students: Scott Stinner, Britta Moore, Tom Golazewski, Paul Creme, and Laura Bochner (and it was her 21st birthday!!)

We’ve still gotta: put up the fencing with fence staples and attach it to the wire at the top with zip ties.  I think we’re planning on working on Friday morning to finish it up.  Let me know if you can come!!

Thanks to everyone for coming out and helping today!!

And THANK YOU to Derek Smith for the yummy snacks..fruit and cookies from the farmers market! 🙂

Jenn

Fence Building–Again this Saturday!

Hey everyone!!

We had a building day on Saturday thanks for the help from LEAP, the Music Appreciation floor, and some great faculty and staff including John Wilson, Andy Smith, Dave Brandes, and Annette Diorio for all the help!  We got about half of the fence posts up, so we’re planning on having another building day this coming Saturday, May 9th at 7AM.

Thanks to Mr. Jim Krivoski for buying doughnuts! 😀

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These fence posts are native black locust trees from Prof. John Wilson’s farm.

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We finished one side and most of the other.   This is where the gate is going to be located.

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Professor Wilson, Sean Murphy, Scott Stinner working on the corner.  In the back: Annette Diorio, Britta Moore, and little Jack working on putting up some posts.

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Paul Creme, Zeus Wu, and Prof. Andy Smith digging a hole.

Saturday Building Day!!

Hey everybody!

It’s official, Saturday morning, May 2nd at 9AM: LEAP, SEES, Music Appreciation Floor, Phi Psi, and lots of faculty and staff and families will be coming together to put up our fence posts, put up the deer fence, mark off the community plots, and perhaps do some weeding and other site prep.
If you’d like to come help out, come to Metzgar Sat. morning or send me an email for more info: bellj@lafayette.edu!

Thanks and hope to see ya there!

Jenn

Site Preparation and such

Hey everyone,

Today Prof. Brandes and I went out to Metzgar bright and early to mark the location of the perimeter fence posts.  The campus plant operation staff are going to dig the holes for us hopefully very soon.  After we finished, I stayed for a couple hours to start pulling some weeds.  Unfortunately they’re really starting to grow already.

If everything goes smoothly this week, we hope to have a fence-building day on this Saturday, May 2nd at 9AM.  If you’d like to come help, send me an email at bellj@lafayette.edu.

If we have a lot of people and it goes quickly, we’ll mark the community plots, pull some weeds, and start some planting too! 🙂

Jenn

It’s time for some Community Gardenin’

The campus wide community garden email has gone out and I’ve received a bunch of forms and payment already!  Thank you so much for supporting our project.  I’ve put the names of those who I’ve received forms from on the About the Gardeners section of the site.  It’s really energizing to see so much support from all around campus!  Here’s a picture I took of our future plots on Sunday afternoon.  Can’t wait!  🙂

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Project Update! Good News All Around.

Hey everyone!

Most of the seeds have officially arrived!  I picked them up just in time for the LEAP meeting on Wednesday.  We’re still waiting on a few packets, but they’re here for the most part.  Also, apparently the field has been plowed as of Monday afternoon: so we’ll be putting in the fence posts and planting very soon!!

Prof. Brandes is going to Metzgar tomorrow morning (Sat.) with some students to survey.  And Prof. Derek Smith has been working with Dining Services and the campus legal staff to work out serving the veggies in the dining halls.

Things are a happenin’! 😀
If you’d like to help out with planting/fence posting let me know and I can add you to the garden club email list!

Jenn