Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts

Monday, December 12, 2011

Hoop House!

Jesse and I took on the challenge of making a hoop house for our community garden plot.  This year it will be more of trial situation to see if what we did will work. It took planning, shopping and a few times at the garden to complete. The biggest area of contention was on the plastic. I found numerous of articles stating regular painting plastic. Our friends at the garden said it had to be (super expense) greenhouse plastic to let in the correct UV rays.  We shall see if it works!

Our project uses about half of a 10' x 25' roll of 3mil. plastic, 8- 10', 1/2" dia. PVC pipes, 10 circle screws, twine and plastic holders.

Here are the results:


Currently, we have planted our strawberry plant, carrots, onions and (donated to us) catnip.

Bonus- time lapse of our garden this year, 2011

Must take way more pictures next year, I do not even have pictures of our tall beautiful sunflowers that were there. Will do better in 2012!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Do I have a green thumb?

Community and container gardens are my latest "green" endeavor. This post is about my gardens and my green thumb efforts. Our container garden is well under way and our plot has been given to us at the community garden. The city of Tacoma has recently started seven new community gardens. My boyfriend and I were lucky enough join at the start of one of these lovely gardens.

My Grandmother (Meme, my mom's mom) and Granddaddy (dad's dad) have inspired me to want to continue the traditions of gardening and farming. My Meme, has always thoroughly enjoyed gardens. Some of my early memories include her Alabama mountain homes with their beautiful gardens. She now resides in the North Carolina mountains and continues her gardens. My granddaddy and I use to fill bucket after bucket picking our blueberry plants on the farm I grew up on as a child.

For now I reside with my boyfriend in an apartment and we have started a container garden. We bought a cedar plant box from our local farmer's market and have since filled it with an array of wonderful plant babies (culinary lavender, oregano, rosemary, lettuce and spinach). We have had them for a little over a month and they seem to be enjoying there new home.





Also, while searching for a way to volunteer locally, I stumbled on a community garden that was in our neighborhood. It is a short fifteen minute walk from our apartment through a lovely residential area.  We have since joined and have been given a plot for even more room for plant babies. At the WSU plant sale a few weekends ago, we purchased zucchini, strawberry and a Geum "red dragon" (pretty flower). I am excited to get them in the ground and watch their progress! Anyone need any zucchini? I hear that they produce a very healthy crop.

I am very enthusiastic about our gardens and am very appreciative to have such a wonderful person in my life (my boyfriend) that has aided in starting something that is very important to me.