2010 Grace Garden Plans!

I’m re-posting our Grace Garden update from a few weeks ago – if you are interested in participating in the CSA, get those CSA forms submitted ASAP!

The leadership of the Grace Garden met last week and discussed our plans for the 2010 Grace Garden.

In addition to those who want to participate in the CSA setup like last year, we decided to open up the garden to other types of gardeners.

The CSA will be very similar to last year’s structure. We will not have any shareholders or sponsors this year. The only way to be involved with the Grace Garden CSA is as a volunteer shareholder or plot leader. Right now, we have three plot leaders, each with space for EIGHT volunteer shareholders. We are opening up those 24 spots first to those involved with last year’s CSA, on a first-come, first-served basis. If you are interested, complete the CSA agreement and submit it, along with your payment, to the Grace Garden mailbox in the Grace mailroom.

We are also looking for one – two more individuals interested in being plot leaders, which would open up more spots for volunteer shareholders in the CSA. Email me if you are interested in learning more about being a plot leader.

If the CSA option doesn’t interest you, we will be offering a more traditional community garden option. We will rent community garden plots for $25 per plot. We are still working out the details, but the plots will probably be around 15 feet x 15 feet. If you have a larger family or small group that wants to garden as a group, you may want to rent two plots adjacent to one another. We ask that you glean ten percent of your produce to Third Phase (you can just contribute it along with the CSA’s contributions each week), if possible, and also that you only use organic gardening methods.

We are giving those individuals who participated in last year’s CSA until March 1 to decide if they want to participate in this year’s CSA. After March 1, we will open up the spots to anyone.

We will also have a general plot whose yields will go directly to Third Phase, as we did last year. Any volunteers that are unable to commit to volunteering on a regular basis may want to help out with the general plot.

We need your prayers as we continue to plan for a fruitful garden this year. We also need the following:

• Individuals willing to serve as “garden experts” that our gardeners could come to with questions or concerns throughout the season (this could very easily be accomplished over email with little additional time on the part of the “expert/s”).
• Compost material or donations that enable us to purchase our own compost. See this post for more information.
• Someone with some design experience to help us lay out the community garden plots and additional CSA plots.
• A volunteer/s with some engineering experience to help us figure out how to setup a rain collection system out at the garden.
• Seed/transplant donations for the garden.
• A tiller
• Whatever time/expertise/help you are willing to give!