Community Gardens, How Can We Help?

Hill East Community Gardeners held their Annual Meeting/Potluck Dinner and invited DC Urban Gardeners Ed Bruske and myself to attend.  Okay, they didn't know we exist yet (how could they?) but their invited guest - Lorin O'Toole of D.C.'s Department of Environment, invited Ed and me to tag along and maybe answer some questions about pests.  So here's what we learned and a little about what they might have learned from us (more coming soon, we hope.)

• Community gardens are HAPPENING, very cool in a community-building, get-to-know-your-neighbor sort of way.  And as a lifelong by-myself gardener who spends waay too much time talking to myself in my own back yard, I'm totally jealous.  The photo shows board member Rochelle Woodard speaking to the group.
• The Hill East garden started in 2002 and the first year and a half was spent just clearing the space of debris, including whole cars.  So somebody sure had vision, to look at a dump site and see the potential for growing food.  And with who-knows-what-all in the soil under all that crap, they wisely decided to build raised beds. 
• Hill Easters were guided by a nearby experienced community gardener - Pat Taylor of the King's Court Garden.  Pat's also a mover/shaker in the Capitol Hill Garden Club.
• Gardeners at Hill East pay $50 a year, plus a one-time $100 initiation fee (which includes orientation).  All 36 of its 12x4 plots are occupied now and there's a waiting list to join. 
• Hill East is an all-organic, which is a particular challenge for community gardens, where scores of different gardeners are making their plant choices independently and exercising different degrees of garden clean-up. 

Pests?
You bet, and the most-hated insects here are cucumber beetles and harlequin beetles. So what's an organic gardener to do?  Ed offered suggestions about the macro solutions, like soil amendments (compost, compost, compost), using pest-resistant varieties, and giving giving up on growing pest-prone vegetables altogether.  Or how about attracting more beneficial insects?   I recommended the Maryland Home and Garden Center as the best local source of information for gardeners - here's the link to their science-based publications, including several about Integrated Pest Management and the best varieties of vegetable to grow in this area.  Even Virginia Master Gardeners recommend this excellent site, which is produced by the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension Service.

(Later, D.C. Master Gardener Barbara Baldwin did a little research and sent me this bad news about cucumber beetles:  there's no real organic control; only row covers offer a bit of protection and picking off the insects, along with cleaning up the area in the fall and in the spring.  Sorry!)

Ornamentals
Here's a photo of Hill East at its worst, I'm sure, and if somebody has a photo in season, send it along and I'll post it instead.  What it would surely show are lots of color and beauty in the garden's 2-foot-wide perimeter plantings, including drought-tolerant perennials like sedum and daylilies.  Asked to suggest others, we threw out ideas like butterfly bush, crapemyrtle, salvia, and for evergreen color, tall but narrow junipers.

How can we help?
If Ed or I had anything helpful to offer Hill Easters we're pleased as punch but really, we were there to find out how to help.  So now that there's a volunteer gardener group in D.C., how can we help its 30-some community gardens?

• What should we add to our website?  How about a separate page about starting, managing and growing in community gardens?
• We learned that Hill Easters have their own Yahoo group - an important resource for any group - but would you like a way to communicate with community gardeners citywide?
• When Lorin talked about the TWO hazardous waste collection events yearly in all of D.C., it was obvious that more are needed.  And the ONE event this spring is April 21 at Carter Barron Ampitheater on upper 16th Street - nowhere near Capitol Hill.  These collection events are for your unused pesticides, fertilizers, lead paint, florescent lights, and dead electronics.
• And how about free compost and mulch from the city's leaf collection activities?  We agree that's a huge need and we're on it!  A full report is coming soon to this blog and will be posted permenantly on our site.

Hill Easters, it was great meeting you and seeing your garden, and invite us back soon!

Posted by Susan Harris

Hill East Community Gardeners held their Annual Meeting/Potluck Dinner and invited DC Urban Gardeners Ed Bruske and myself to attend.  Okay, they didn't know we exist yet (how could they?) but their invited guest - Lorin O'Toole of D.C.'s Department of Environment, invited Ed and me to tag along and maybe answer some questions about pests.  So here's what we learned and a little about what they might have learned from us (more coming soon, we hope.)

• Community gardens are HAPPENING, very cool in a community-building, get-to-know-your-neighbor sort of way.  And as a lifelong by-myself gardener who spends waay too much time talking to myself in my own back yard, I'm totally jealous.  The photo shows board member Rochelle Woodard speaking to the group.
• The Hill East garden started in 2002 and the first year and a half was spent just clearing the space of debris, including whole cars.  So somebody sure had vision, to look at a dump site and see the potential for growing food.  And with who-knows-what-all in the soil under all that crap, they wisely decided to build raised beds. 
• Hill Easters were guided by a nearby experienced community gardener - Pat Taylor of the King's Court Garden.  Pat's also a mover/shaker in the Capitol Hill Garden Club.
• Gardeners at Hill East pay $50 a year, plus a one-time $100 initiation fee (which includes orientation).  All 36 of its 12x4 plots are occupied now and there's a waiting list to join. 
• Hill East is an all-organic, which is a particular challenge for community gardens, where scores of different gardeners are making their plant choices independently and exercising different degrees of garden clean-up. 

Pests?
You bet, and the most-hated insects here are cucumber beetles and harlequin beetles. So what's an organic gardener to do?  Ed offered suggestions about the macro solutions, like soil amendments (compost, compost, compost), using pest-resistant varieties, and giving giving up on growing pest-prone vegetables altogether.  Or how about attracting more beneficial insects?   I recommended the Maryland Home and Garden Center as the best local source of information for gardeners - here's the link to their science-based publications, including several about Integrated Pest Management and the best varieties of vegetable to grow in this area.  Even Virginia Master Gardeners recommend this excellent site, which is produced by the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension Service.

(Later, D.C. Master Gardener Barbara Baldwin did a little research and sent me this bad news about cucumber beetles:  there's no real organic control; only row covers offer a bit of protection and picking off the insects, along with cleaning up the area in the fall and in the spring.  Sorry!)

Ornamentals
Here's a photo of Hill East at its worst, I'm sure, and if somebody has a photo in season, send it along and I'll post it instead.  What it would surely show are lots of color and beauty in the garden's 2-foot-wide perimeter plantings, including drought-tolerant perennials like sedum and daylilies.  Asked to suggest others, we threw out ideas like butterfly bush, crapemyrtle, salvia, and for evergreen color, tall but narrow junipers.

How can we help?
If Ed or I had anything helpful to offer Hill Easters we're pleased as punch but really, we were there to find out how to help.  So now that there's a volunteer gardener group in D.C., how can we help its 30-some community gardens?

• What should we add to our website?  How about a separate page about starting, managing and growing in community gardens?
• We learned that Hill Easters have their own Yahoo group - an important resource for any group - but would you like a way to communicate with community gardeners citywide?
• When Lorin talked about the TWO hazardous waste collection events yearly in all of D.C., it was obvious that more are needed.  And the ONE event this spring is April 21 at Carter Barron Ampitheater on upper 16th Street - nowhere near Capitol Hill.  These collection events are for your unused pesticides, fertilizers, lead paint, florescent lights, and dead electronics.
• And how about free compost and mulch from the city's leaf collection activities?  We agree that's a huge need and we're on it!  A full report is coming soon to this blog and will be posted permenantly on our site.

Hill Easters, it was great meeting you and seeing your garden, and invite us back soon!

Posted by Susan Harris