View source for Jan 15 2023 Garden Committee Meeting

10 AM Sunday January 15 2023 the Garden Committee met in classroom 1.  In attendance were: Bill Youngers, Sean Sandefur, Scott Sullivan, Jay Swan, Bee Wherrell, Jesse Schlenker, Aaron Rivers, and Sherry Ibrahim. Goals discussed for the new year:

* making more regular donations to local food pantries
* double the size of the garden by solarizing an equal sized area to the south of the current garden this season
* building 7 new raised beds for rental plots, and a future goal of having community plots for rental outside the organization 
* containing the compost area and having 3 separate compost piles (completed, composting, new additions)
* writing guidelines for the compost area
* signs for the raised beds (Scott Sullivan is working on, waiting for CNC plasma cutter to be repaired)
* cleaning up the materials in the yard, and hiding the materials kept for a more tidy appearance
* planting more native wildflowers to benefit native pollinators (honey bees are not native)
* "Leaves the leaves" to help pollinators
* poison garden and toxic plants classes
* obtaining a new two wheeled cart
* utilizing quality landscape fabric to help reduce bindweed invasion
* planting multiple corn varieties, small pumpkins, pickling cucumbers, possibly Jerusalem artichokes and more sunflowers
* pickling classes and gardening classes

Sean Sandefur will look into obtaining more wood donations from Star Lumber, and see if the soil donations previously offered are still available for new raised beds.  Jesse Schlenker will help build the beds and Sherry Ibrahim is interested in helping with preventative weed control before they are installed.  Using 2x6x8' pine from Menards, the estimated cost of the beds (using existing 4x4s) is $54+tax apiece.

Bee Wherrell is interested in helping Sherry Ibrahim with the [[Poison Garden]] which was approved by the committee.  Scott Sullivan has offered some seed donations for the garden. 

Members took a tour of the garden to show new members what is currently in place and what we have to work with this season.