If anyone would like to join South Side Community Land Trust’s Community Grower’s Network as a council member, here’s your chance!

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many of you know that the Community Growers Network (what many of  you joined this spring) has a Council. The Council leads the Network – the activities, events, projects, and resource
distribution (think compost!)

we are so proud of our Council, but we need more of you! the Council meets about 6 times a year, while breaking up into committees to work on events and projects.  there are lots of perks to being on the Council – if you’re interested, please let me know and we can chat more about it.

we’re having a Council Social Hour to meet the present Council and also meet potential Council members on Tues. May 22nd, 5-7pm at our office.

we’ll have wine and snacks.  lots of fun will be had!

Hello Gardeners & Potential Gardeners,

Please Join us for the work weekend, tomorrow Saturday, April 21 (9-2) & Sunday, April 22 (10-2). You are welcome to come early or stay later.

There is a whiteboard on the back side of the bulletin board where chores will be marked.

Remember this time is meant for tending the entire garden, not your own plot. Please wear sturdy shoes, gloves and work clothing.  If you have extra cordless power tools to bring, please bring them. Hammers & hand saws are also appreciated.

I’d like to have a general garden meeting around 11 on Saturday.

If you decide to come earlier in the day:

• Weed around your plot(s) and at least one plot outwardly in all directions.
• The perimeter of the garden may be weeded
  • do not cut back any of the raspberries, blackberries nor grapes.
    
• Remove any trash from the area.
• Please do not put garden waste in the trash cans. They are meant for regular trash.
• Put garden refuse in the leftmost compost bins only. Break down large woody stems into pieces no longer than 6″.
• Everything in the shed needs to come out and be organized
• The shed needs to be swept out / reconfigured.
  • If anyone has an old, smallish chest of drawers that they want to get rid of: this would be a nice thing to donate to the shed.
• weed and fix bricks around the terrace

I’m sure there are plenty more things to do, but this is just a preliminary list if you prefer to work in the early hours. There should still be the notebook in the shed to record your time spent at the garden. Remember that every member is required to donate at least 2 hours per month outside of their plots in the garden.

If the weather turns terribly sour tomorrow and Sunday, we’ll postpone the work weekend for the next weekend. If it’s just a little rainy (sprinkles and such) the work weekend continues.

I look forward to seeing many of you tomorrow.

A little history: Prior to 2010, everybody fended for themselves regarding soil conditioning & composting options. I remember spending close to $40 in bagged compost & soil conditioners that year; the following year we joined the Grower’s Network with the collected donations of the gardeners. 2011, we joined again using gardener donations & raised funds from the Harvest Party.

This year we know that the Grower’s Network is only planning on using Rhode Island Resource Recovery (RIRRC) compost, which is fine (more below); what we need to decide is if we want to join it or fend for ourselves.

Here are our options for what we can do:

OPTION ONE

Join the Grower’s Network with the South Side Community Land Trust

The compost they are providing this year is organically-certified; however, it is mostly composed of leaves, grass clippings and wood chips with little in the way of nutrition. This means that:

• The compost from RIRRC is great for conditioning the soil quality
• The compost from RIRRC is not a nutritious compost.

The way I see it is that we have our own compost already that consists of much of these things and the RIRRC is very inexpensive, so I think we could probably agree to cooperate to get whatever we need from RIRRC on our own time schedule.

Joining the network costs the garden at least $500.

The price of the RIRRC compost is about $30/yd

OPTION TWO: An Opt-in.

Allow the gardeners to opt-in together to buy compost from Earth Care Farm, which is much more expensive but also nutritionally dense, removing the need to add continuous extra fertilizer. In this case, those that would want the compost would opt-in, therefore the price would be reflective of how many people want collective compost. For most plots, an additional $10-$20 should suffice, but it will give the individual gardener the power to choose how much or how little s/he can afford – or would like – to put into the pot.

Pricing Info

Kurt Teichert (resident since 2011, new board member) did some research for the board to help us come up with some solution to our composting issue. He writes:

Hi All,

I spoke with Mike Merner yesterday at the composting conference about prices and delivery.

Earth Care Farm compost is $54/yd and delivery is about $240 and the truck can haul a max of 20 cu yds. http://www.earthcarefarm.com/pricing.htm

My rough estimate is that this would allow for ~ 1 inch of compost for each of ~130 plots. This equates to $10 per plot for gardeners to add 1 inch of compost to a 4 x 8 plot.

I think 1 inch is the minimum that should be applied.

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The Class-A compost (now also organic) from RIRRC is listed at $30/yd http://www.rirrc.org/resident/composting/residential-compost-sales/

For those of you that were with us through the 2010 season, recall that we were given the Earth Care Farm compost; Last year we were given the RIRRC compost.

So I want to open the discussion up and see if we can come up with a plan.

Hello Gardeners & Wait Listed Gardeners!

It is less than one week until we hold our second annual Seed Swap at the Portuguese-American Social Club, 32 Sheldon St., Providence, RI.  I hope all of you can come because along with seeds to trade, we will have two speakers, Michael Bradlee (EcoRI) and John Kenny (Big Train Farm)  joining us to talk about soil building and composting.

Other than yourselves, what to bring:

• This is a semi-potluck event. If you want to bring some kind of appetizer or snack food, please don’t hesitate to do so. It should pair nicely with bar drinks as there is a cash bar downstairs that supports the P-ASC, so please support them responsibly   It is not required that you bring anything, but it is appreciated.
• If you are bringing seeds, please try to include as much information about them as you have, for instance, how long they take to grow, if they are annual or perennial, any special care (shade or full sun), etc.
• If you are renewing your plot, please be prepared to sign the new contract and bring your dues by way of a check made out to Fox Point Community Garden.
• We are not handing out open plots yet, so if you are on the wait list, there is no need to bring payment. But we’d still love to have you come to the Seed Swap and get to know your future neighbor gardeners. FYI: I’ll be starting to assign plots around St. Patrick’s Day after the bulk of our resident gardeners have renewed.
• If you are receiving this email and you DO NOT want to renew, please let me know so I can open up your plot for assignment in March. You are still welcome to the Seed Swap, and I hope you come!
• If you will be out of town for the seed swap and want to renew, do not fret. We will meet up at another date to take care of it. I am just trying to get the bulk of the resident gardeners renewed so I know what’s open, but I won’t give away your plot without communicating with you first.

To download a .pdf of the Seed Swap flier for your fridge, click here.

Happy pre-Spring, yo’s!!

k