Garden Kickoff Meeting - Saturday 10am

Sent by Dan Allen via email on Feburary 26th, 2010 (Send email to [masked] to be on official list) ****************************************** "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." -- Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto ****************************************** Readington Community Garden Newsletter The Readington Community Garden is a loosely organized collection of nice people who are interested in growing food and community. You can "belong" to the community garden any time of the year by just showing up, doing some work, and bringing home some good food. There are no obligatory fees or tedious paperwork to fill out -- just stop-by, grab a hoe/weed, and strike up a conversation. ****************************************** Hello there! Executive summary for this week: (1) Volunteers needed for Volunteers Open House on Tue 3/2 at 7pm -- see details below; (2) Community Garden meeting on Saturday 3/20 at 10am, at the garden -- all members welcome; (3) We need cinder blocks at the garden. Volunteers needed: We need volunteers to sit at Community Garden table during Readington Volunteers Open House on Tuesday 3/2 at 7:00pm at the Municipal Building. Let me know if you're interested. You'd just need to talk about the garden to interested passers-by. I'll have handouts and a board with pictures to bring along. Garden meeting: We're having Community Garden meeting on Saturday 3/20 at 10:00am at the garden. All members are welcome. We'll just go over the general plan for this year. I'll send a group email with a summary from the meeting for everybody -- so don't worry if you can't make it. We won't have individual plots this year -- just all community rows. But...you can still plant your favorite veggie & take care of it -- it'll just be a shared harvest. I'm also thinking of doind an adopt-a-variety seed-saving project where you pick one or more veggies to grow for next-year's seed supply. Fun!! See you soon! Some things we need for the garden: Cinder blocks for a new compost bin inside garden; pine needles to put around blueberries; organic waste & compost for the compost pile. Thanks! Free Veggie-seed Catalog!: Everyone interested in gardening should go to www.johnnyseeds.com & order a free catalog to be mailed to your place of residence. This is the best gardening "book" you can get -- and it's free! It tells you how to grow everything. New members: Remember that new members are welcome to join the garden at any time of the season, so continue to brag about our garden to your friends & family. Just tell them to drop me an email. ...And as always, many thrilling plant-related spectacles and spine-tingling acts of community-togetherness are in store this week in " Community Garden Land " -- so here's what's up: ******************************************* I. What We Did Lately (1/10) We (the royal 'we') ordered some fruit and nut tree seedlings. They include peach, pecan, and english walnut. They'll come some time in March & we can plant them together. Fun! ********************************************** II. Things to do until the next meeting We can read-up on gardening stuff. I highly recommend all Eliot Coleman's gardening books. Also check out books about permaculture ('Gaia's Garden'), saving seeds ('Saving Seeds' by Rogers), root cellaring ('Root Cellaring' by Bubel), and fementation ('Wild Fermentation' by Katz). The 'Johnny's Seeds' and 'Fedco Seeds' catalogs are also great reading. And, as always, don't forget to come now & then over the Winter & just stand quietly in the middle of the garden, look around, and appreciate the view and our wonderful community garden! See you soon! -- Dan ********************************************* III. Financial Information 2010 Donations: New donations: $25 on 1/30, $25 on 1/12, $25 on 1/10, $35 on 1/8. Thanks!! Old donations: $470 carried over from 2009 balance. Total 2010 donations = $580 so far.. Thank you! 2010 Purchases: New purchases: nut & fruit tree seedlings ($97) Old purchases: veggie seeds from Fedco ($199), onion & potato seeds from Fedco ($153). Total 2010 purchases = $449 so far. 2010 Overall Balance: $580 donations - $449 purchases = +$131. All donations are strictly voluntary -- i.e. none are required to be a member. But if you're feelin' rich, you can mail any donations (& make checks out) to me: Dan Allen, 163 Stanton Rd, Flemington, NJ 08822, or just hand them to me on any Saturday morning. ********************************************* IV. Seed Orders for 2010 This is the order for 1/10/10 from Fedco Seeds: ('backorder' stuff is usually still sent before Spring, so it's OK) 205PO-Provider Bush Green Bean OG (C=1lb) 1 x $8.00= $8.00 489FO-Shirofumi Soybean OG (C=8oz) 1 x $10.00= $10.00 508ST-Spring Treat Yellow Sweet Corn (B=8oz) 1 x $7.50= $7.50 812DW-Dwarf White Sugar Snow Pea (B=8oz) 1 x $3.60= $3.60-currently on backorder 925GO-Golden Gopher Muskmelon OG (B=1/4oz) 1 x $4.50= $4.50 974DO-Sweet Dakota Rose Watermelon OG (A=1/16oz) 1 x $1.80= $1.80 1313MO-Marketmore 76 Slicing Cucumber OG (D=1oz) 1 x $6.00= $6.00-currently on backorder 1411BZ-Black Zucchini (E=4oz) 1 x $5.50= $5.50 TONS MORE HERE CLICK LINK TO READ FULL -------------------->>>>> https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AY7tip0c_KEtZGNuaHE0OGdfMTY1YzhqcHp6Y3Q&hl=en