May 25, 2008

Here are the minutes from the Sumner Community Garden Dessert Social and Meeting of the Gardening Minds, as promised. The location of the other garden has been purposely munged in a attempt to keep it secret from would be vandals, chicken thieves, and Wile E. Coyotes (carnivorum lowselfesteemus).

Sent: Friday, May 23, 2008 8:05 PM
Subject: Garden Social Mtng. Minutes
The first Garden Social was a great success! Thanks to all who attended and brought their desserts and ideas. Below is a summary of some of the issues covered in no particular order of importance.

The Master Gardeners hot line is # 253-798-7170. They are available from 9am-3pm to answer any and all of your gardening questions.

The shed will be cleaned out and available for gardeners to keep their tools and such. It is on the 'list of things to do' so it will likely be a couple weeks. Thanks Bruce.

Randy will be giving tours of the community corn, potato, bean, and pumpkin patches at the other community garden site (by the cemetery).
The first tour will be Wed. May 28th at 7pm
The second tour will be Sat. May 31st at 10am.
The site is located next to the someplace (over by that other place)
Randy will meet anyone who is unfamiliar with the area in the parking lot of a store you aren't familiar with fifteen minutes prior to both tours. Then you can follow him to the site.

Randy and Don talked about the different community crops that are being prepared.
Beans, Peas, Potato's, Corn, and Pumpkins. It was decided that if you were interested in taking some of the harvest of these crops that you would offer an hour or so of time per month to taking care of them IE: watering, weeding, stringing etc... Many people have shown an interest so it should be fun. If more time is needed to meet their growing needs, we'll let you know. I will send out periodic e-mails regarding different tasks that need to be done at different times. Thank you to Don, Eileen, and Randy for all of their time in setting up these garden crops.

I ran into a couple of gardeners who were uncertain about our pesticide/herbicide guidelines. I thank them for their questions because it let me know that perhaps we had not made it clear in our guidelines. So, clarification... NO PESTICIDES OR HERBICIDES!! We are an organic community garden. Other community gardens have said this is a real make or break issue as it directly impacts all gardeners. If you need help with some organic suggestions ask our Master Gardeners, they have all kinds of ideas.

A wish list was presented and added to: Wheel Barrow (Cindi offered one) , Picnic Table (Lori is working on that) Bench, Tools (Jim had some extras) Lost and Found box (Cindi), Short Hose, Hose Guides (Kathy is checking out Craig's List) Herb Garden (Bette has volunteered to plant one) THANK YOU ALL!! If anyone else can help, let me know.

Liquid fence was suggested as a way to deter rabbits.

It was suggested that we give extra harvest to The Sumner Food Bank!! Fabulous Idea!

Winter gardening was discussed. It was agreed that winter crops were fine to grow and that we would revisit cover crops at a later meeting.

And we can't forget THE GREAT CHICKEN DEBATE OF 2008!!
Randy brought up the idea of keeping some chickens at one of the garden sites for their eggs. After much debate several people did sign up to be on the 'Chicken Team' to discuss the issue further. If you are interested, contact Randy. We will keep you updated.

The Great Chicken Debate of 2008! Now thats some funny stuff.

--It's Fosco, Dammit!