Loose Leaf Notes

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press on September 2, 2010.

Floyd Countian Ann Moses has always had a garden.  When she moved in town to the Pine Ridge Apartments she was disappointed to discover that there was no space provided to grow even one tomato plant.   The Floyd Community Garden, which broke ground for the first time in the spring, was a perfect solution for Moses, who tended two of the thirty10 x10 plots. The garden, located off Route 8 in the Northside Plaza, is one of several community food projects organized by Plenty! co-founders Karen Day and McCabe Coolidge.

“I love it.  I got my pickles made and my tomatoes canned,” a smiling Moses reported at Wednesday’s monthly community garden potluck.

Marianne Thomas, who also lives at the Pine Ridge Apartments, brought salsa dip made from tomatoes she grew in one of her four community garden plots.  “That’s mine with the weeds,” she said, pointing near a two foot pile of weeds that she had recently pulled up.  Thomas also grew peppers for homemade jalapeño relish, she said.

Throughout the growing season, fifteen gardeners planted, weeded, and watered most of the community plots, which cost $5 per plot.  A few unused plots were planted with a buckwheat cover crop.   Materials, such as the wood chips for garden walkways, were donated, Coolidge explained. “The land was donated by FAIRS (Foundation for Amateur International Radio Service), a non-profit group headed by David Larsen,” Day said.

The Community Garden has also been a good fit for Lori Kaluszka who lives in a downtown apartment.  She picked some leaves from a large stevia plant growing in her plot and offered it for others to taste.  “It’s a natural sweetener. You can dry the leaves or use them fresh to sweeten drinks,” she said.

“We got some deer and groundhogs at the end of July, but they didn’t do too much damage,” said Coolidge. He figured that the organic spray repellent used on the garden got washed off by all the rain, so he reapplied it.  Coolidge and Day, who also garden at the community site, just finished moving the Plenty! headquarters and Coolidge’s Wildfire pottery outlet from under the Winter Sun to its new Northside Plaza location adjacent to the garden.

Master Gardener Mary Hart brought a fall garden planting schedule for the area and spoke to the gardeners about their fall garden plans.  She recommended putting down a green cover crop over the winter. “It feeds the soil and keeps it from compacting,” she said.  Cold frames made with old windows over wooden frames to lengthen the growing season and garden mulching options were also discussed.  Hart said it’s late for planting cold weather crops from seed, but it might produce results if the weather stays warm.

Gannon Bender is still waiting for his melons to ripen, but he’s regularly eating the kale and beet greens that he planted.   First time gardener Jim Knapp said he began his plot as an experiment.   He started with a planting of carrots and tomatoes but then added more vegetables, including eggplants. Knapp is happy with the way his experiment turned out, he said as he and nine other gardeners sat down to enjoy a meal made from the fruits of their labor.

Note: For more information on the Floyd Community Garden, Portable Produce, Empty Bowls, Healthy Snacks, Kids Wondergarden, and other Plenty! projects call Karen Day at 357-5657 or contact her and Coolidge through the Plenty! website at plentylocal.org.    The insect and deer repellent recipe mentioned above is: one gallon of water, one cup of regular milk, 1 tablespoon of Wesson Oil, one tablespoon of Ivory Liquid, and one egg (with the white “tail” inside remove so the sprayer will not clog).