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A Few Open Plots Available
A few people registered and then could not start for one reason or another. Right now we have open plots at Platt, Ellsworth and possibly County Farm. We will re-till these plots if anyone is interested. There are also four raised beds available at the County Farm Discovery Garden.
All these plots and beds are available for
half off! Apply for them
here, pay online and we will refund half the payment within 24 hours.
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2015 Plant Sale
Our 2015 Plant Sale was a big success thanks to you, our gardeners and other shoppers. Project Grow wants to thank everyone who bought plants from us this year.
We started about 3600 tomato, pepper and basil plants to be sold in 3" pots plus about 500 kale, broccoli, collards and chard plants in 4 packs. More than half the plants in 3" pots were sold as advance orders. This year, gardeners picked up their advance orders at Dawn Farm and everyone (including people who had not advance ordered plants) was allowed to buy additional plants at Dawn Farm. Another 400 plants were sold at this pre-sale. By the time of our regular sale in front of People's Food Co-op on May 16th, 2/3 of the plants were already gone and a number of varieties were sold out. Anything left after the Co-op sale was sold at the $2 Sale on May 17th at our Platt garden site.
The revenue for the 2015 sale was $9800. We know we promote this sale vigorously, but it is our only big fundraiser and it makes a difference. All of Project Grow operates on a budget of under $55,000, so a fundraiser of this size makes a big difference. If not for the plant sale, we would need to increase plot fees by an average of $25 per plot to continue having a balanced budget. |
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Thank You!
We would like to thank all the volunteers who helped with our plant sale. We decided to not list names because so many people were involved and we would not want to miss anyone. But, to give you an idea of the scale of the project, we will list all the jobs:
- Harvesting seeds from the 2014 tomato crop.
- Seed sowing and starting in February and March 2015.
- Transplanting seedlings to 4 packs.
- Transplanting seedlings from 4 packs to 3" pots.
- Putting labels in all the 3" pots.
- Filling advance orders. (This took about 12 hours!)
- Building shelving to hold advance orders.
- Organizing flats for pickup and pre-sale.
- Helping with advance order pickup at Dawn Farm.
- Assisting shoppers at Dawn Farm during the pre-sale.
- Rack setup at People's Food Co-op the night before the sale.
- Helping customers at the People's Food Co-op sale.
- Transport of plants from Dawn Farm to People's Food Co-op.
- Transporting plants from People's Food Co-op to our $2 sale at Platt on Sunday.
The plant sale is an important fundraiser for Project Grow and would be impossible without these volunteers help. Thank you!
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Garden Site Summer Potlucks
Last year we began holding monthly potlucks at different garden sites to help build a greater sense of community across all of Project Grow. These were well attended and people enjoyed seeing other sites and meeting their gardeners.
This year each potluck will be preceded by a brief talk on a different gardening subject. The topic and instructors are listed with the potluck sites and dates below.
Platt
Saturday June 27th at 4 p.m., rain date of Sunday June 28th at 4 p.m.
Marcella Trautmann will talk about preventing weeds by mulching.
Chapel Hill
July - exact date coming soon.
Joet Reoma will talk about wise watering practices.
Lakewood
August - exact date coming soon.
Dave Corsa will talk about composting in the garden.
County Farm
September - exact date coming soon.
We will be holding a tomato tasting!
Please RSVP here. This matters because if we get rained out, we will only update the people who have RSVP'd.
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Last year's potluck at Greenview
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Upcoming Project Grow Classes
Vermiculture
Date and Time: June 13, 10 a.m.-noon
Place: Leslie House, Leslie Science and Nature Center, 1831 Traver Road, Ann Arbor
Jesse Raudenbush, of Starr Valley Farm and third-generation vermiculturist, will teach a class on the science of vermiculture, how to start and maintain a worm composting bin, and the benefits of worm castings in your garden. Students will make their own starter worm bin, create and add bedding, and finally add 1,000 Red Wiggler composting worms. All materials provided at time of class. Completed starter systems and worms go home with you and a set of notes on how to care for your worms!
The fee for this class is $30 which includes all materials. Please visit Eventbrite to register.
Note: Due to the prep work required for this class, those interested in this class must register in advance [no walk-ins]. Registration for this class will close June 6.
Eat Your Weeds
Date and Time: July 11, 10 a.m.-noon
Place: Leslie House, Leslie Science and Nature Center, 1831 Traver Road, Ann Arbor
Vegetable gardeners bemoan the pesky presence of weeds that threaten to take over their garden. Much work goes into weeding them out. And yet in doing so, valuable foodstuff might be thrown away that are just as tasty and healthful, which grow without the need of coddling and care, and offer themselves free for you to harvest, if you only knew what they are! Instructor, Inge Ferguson, will redefine what a weed is and show you the abundance of naturally growing new foodstuffs that grow in your garden. Registration is required for this class though walk-ins are welcome for a $5 fee.
Kimchi!
Date and Time: July 18, 1 p.m.- 3 p.m.
Place: Ann Arbor Center for Independent Living, 3941 Research Park Dr, Ann Arbor
Learn how to make kimchi, a traditional fermented Korean side dish. Students will taste samples from a freshly made batch of kimchi as they watch how it is made, step-by-step. The kitchen has generous space for students to observe the techniques involved in making this dish, to get up close and personal with the ingredients, and to ask lots of questions. Students will take home some kimchi. Note: This is a demonstration class. The fee for this class is $10 which includes all materials. Registration is required for this class though walk-ins are welcome for the $10 fee.
The class is being offered by Linda Wan, passionate about kimchi and other fermented foods.
For all classes, please check our website to read about any changes to the course (eg: time, location).
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Project Grow Fence Raising
Building a barn is too big a job for a single family and in a traditional rural barn raising, everyone in the community helps one family build a barn. Project Grow gardeners at Hunt Park and West Park have urbanized rural barn raising by holding annual "Fence Raising" work days to protect their gardens. The Hunt Park and West Park have their own unique needs but have successfully used many hands to make light work.
Both gardens are in city parks and the city requires that plots must be fenced identically. Hunt Park has had problems with deer for the past few years, so they use a 10' tall fine black mesh fence to keep out deer and combine it with 2' chicken wire fence to keep out rabbits and groundhogs. Hunt uses a single fence around the entire site accessed through gates at either end.
At West Park, the city wanted the garden paths to not be gated so non-gardeners could use them. To do this, the West Park gardens are fenced in four separate sections separated by two paths. Because of the open paths and multiple sections, the fence requires 125 metal stakes, 600 feet of fencing and nine gates!
About 25 gardeners showed up on a rainy Saturday to put up West Park's fence. There were fewer Hunt gardeners but both groups put up their site's fence in less than two hours.
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| Other than the support posts, Hunt Park's deer fencing is practically invisible |
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| West Park's huge crew of volunteers made quick work of a big job |
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