HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO THE GARLAND COMMUNITY GARDEN! WE ARE 8 YEARS OLD!
April 2022, marks the 8th year for The Garland Community Garden For some confused reason I’ve been laboring under the mistaken belief that the date was the 24th of April but thanks to this blog I’ve kept ever since we even started thinking about a community garden, we have a trustworthy record of our journey.
Following is a true report of the official opening of the Garland Community Garden. Do you believe that we didn’t even had water on our site when be started--now that is indeed faith.
[Written April 13, 2014-- the day after the installation]
Four Raised Beds Installed at the Garland Community Garden
The installation of the first raised beds was completed yesterday! Loving Garland Green members all congregated at 4022 Naaman School Road to install a 4' x 7' raised bed. The larger of the four beds is divided by twine into 28 squares and each of our members brought a plant or seeds for planting. Note this type of raised bed is called 'SQUARE FOOT GARDEN". [Several of my posts provide more detail about this type of bed.
The three smaller beds are each two-foot squares--made from untreated pine that we were given. In them we planted sunflowers, corn, marigolds and blackberry vines. In a few weeks we will install the trellis for the blackberry plants as well as a trellis for the cucumber plants in the larger bed.
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Gene Rogers, one of Loving Garland Green members, has designed a drip watering system that we are experimenting with--or I should say "Gene is experimenting with." Ollas are filled with water and then connected with small hoses to a larger reservoir which for now is a 5-gallon bucket.
Perhaps in the future we will install a 55gallon reservoir for each garden plot. That is another design Gene, a retired mechanical engineer, is working on--free-standing rain barrels. Of course, the design would be a mosquito safe design. When needed, we would have a bucket brigade to bring water from home. However, with appropriate rain harvesting techniques and given the annual rainfall here in Garland, there is more than enough water to nourish a garden for every family in Garland. The rooftop of a 1,200 square foot home has the potential, given our annual rainfall, to yield 26,000 gallons of water annually. [Note: We currently in 2022 have city water.]
We have not yet officially applied for water service for the garden. At least for now we are experimenting with the option of not being connected to city water. As part of our mission to inspire and encourage Garland residents to grow their own food, we want to provide examples of creative ways to garden and produce more food from smaller spaces and with more self-reliance.
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As you can see from my archived posts on my blog, I took a COVID hiatus from March of 2020 until April of April 2021. And then a shorter one from November of 2021 until now. Still the timeline follows rather closely all the adventures we’ve had over the past 8 years.
