Houston Community Garden

There will be a pancake breakfast to support the Houston Community Garden on Sunday, October 26th from 7am-12:30pm at the Houston Community Center located at 109 W. Maple St. in Houston!  Everyone is invited for great food (provided by the Houston Lions) with a GF option for those who wish.  There will also be seed swap/donations for the seed library, food "ART"ifacts activities for kids of all ages from 9am-12pm (sponsored by the Houston Arts Resource Council), and garden harvest preserves available for sale!

If you are able to volunteer (particularily after 9:30am) contact Audrey!

Hello friends!

As usual, there is much to say, but I'll keep it short!

Garden Numbers:

Numbers for the year, as of the end of Septemberish:

Food harvested from community garden beds: ~600#

volunteer hours in community garden: ~350

number of volunteers/visitors: 80 (not including rental families)

number of "rental" boxes for personal families: 8 (~28 people?)

number of people who benefit from community garden harvest: ~120

Untold amount of food harvested from and time spend on personal boxes (I didn't add them up as not always written down)

Youngest helper award goes to Dalton Lewison (almost 2 years old)

So, even though we had a cool summer and a relatively late start, we still managed to do some good, yes?

Along the way we even managed to terrorize a few frogs, bother a momma bird and her hatchlings, paint the shed and kiosk, keep the lawn mowed, sort of keep up with weeds, have a celebration of all things pesto!, enjoy the few apples that grew on our trees, and plan for the installation of a well.

The crop of the year probably goes to Kale, which is still producing prolifically, but the lone yellow squash plant, celery and parsley should also be noted as contenders. the Marigolds have also been an attractive sight inside the garden this fall, and the late season carrots and cilantro (which i planted at the end of July) are producing nicely right now. And, oh my, do we still have herbs and horseradish to contend with!

Television Taping:

After two failed attempts to schedule a taping on site, I drove to Austin to record a segment for the KMSQ public television station. This was a very short segment as part of an episode featuring a personal garden and a chef. I really don't know what to expect. I wasn't able to represent all we've done over the past six years into essentially 7 minutes broken into three parts. I'm not sure when it will air, but I am told that I will be informed and I'll pass it on everyone else. I am assured it will be made available on YouTube as well. It is exciting, however, to note that what is happening in Houston in our garden is getting statewide attention!

Well

Shortly after I returned from Alaska, the garden received a check from the Land O Lakes Foundation for essentially the balance of what we needed to put in the well. (Thank YOU very much!) Yea! We have been working since then to finalize how we get electricity to the well with the goal of putting it in yet this fall. Wouldn't it be nice not to worry about water every summer? And I'd love to be able to remove the big water tank, too! So, for now, still working on details.

Wrapping up the year: HELP REQUESTED!

This Saturday, around noon, we're planning a garden clean up day. Roger Meyer is going to bring a truck load of manure (to give our beds a good boost after six years!) and we need shovelers! It will also be a good time to clean out beds and move the compost into beds that are ready for it. The more folks the faster and more fun it will go! Let me know if you can help, or just show up!

Pancake Breakfast October 26th (MONEY!) Help requested!!!

The Lions Club is sponsoring a pancake breakfast to benefit the garden on Sunday, October 26th from 7 am - 12:30 at the Community Center. All proceeds (by donation) will benefit the community garden. (After the well is put in we will still need money for mulching the garden next year and general maintenance on the fence, etc...) Helpers are needed for taking money, serving food, clearing tables, and general hobnobbing. You don't have to work the whole time, but even an hour or two would be most appreciated! We are planning to also offer a seed swap or seed drop for a future seed lending library, food art fun activities for kids of all ages (with the help of HARC) and will have some garden preserves and goodies available for extra donation. Your donations of money, time or items are always welcome! I will be making a poster and sending it out separately in the next days as all our activities are finalized.

I think that's it---for now! Enjoy these beautiful fall days! Hope to see you soon!

Cheers,

Audrey

Hello friends,

Last Saturday, the weather was perfect for a wonderful Pesto Fest-o outside in the bandshell at the nature center. We had 10 different pestos to taste, and they were all so delicious choosing the "besto" was impossible!

3rd place was a three way tie between Ron Evenson (savory mint pesto), Connie Verse (Basil-Beet pesto), and Peggy Kreutzman (kale-chive pesto); 2nd place had a two way tie between Karen Bennett (sun dried tomato pesto) and Audrey Alfson (garlic scape pesto); finally, 1st place was a tie between Ron Evenson (sweet mint pesto) and Audrey Alfson (Cilantro pesto). Whew! Are you hungry yet? (you should have been there!!!)

Roger Meyer's homemade wine remains an all time favorite, as well.

I'm so grateful to him and all the folks who brought in pesto samples and came by to sample, vote and celebrate good food with us! With luck, Ron will send me the recipes for his amazing mint pestos and I'll make them available on the website. www.houstongarden.webs.com

The evenings festivities earned $323.95 in donations for the community garden! Thank you thank you thank you! The money will go toward the cost of putting in a well for the garden.

HELP NEEDED!

We have had a cool summer and enough rain to give us a reprieve from any major watering duties, but there is still lots of summer left!

I will be gone from August 9th - 28th to visit family in Alaska. We need folks to cover the harvest days and any necessary watering and ongoing weeding help during this time.

Right now we seem to be able to keep up with garden growth by harvesting for community on Mondays (for Court and Manor) and Thursdays (for Food Shelf). It's worked well to harvest in the morning around 9 am. usually takes and hour to just harvest, longer if watering needs to be done. On Thursdays, the kids from Hurricane Watch come to the garden to help and usually take the harvest with them and drop it off at the food shelf on their way back to school. (This may change in August, so I need to make sure we have a couple of adults set up for this time)

Box renters: I will place a sign up sheet in the information booth at the garden if you want to sign up for a day in August to help out. Otherwise, please email me and let me know when you can help.

In short, Help is needed in August on Mondays and Thursdays to harvest and other days as needed to water if necessary. Please let me know if you can cover these days for me! If you can help, try to connect with me at the garden before August 9th so that I can walk you though what needs to be done...

Thank you!

--

Audrey Alfson,

Hello Friends,

We're about to find ourselves mid-July, and surprisingly aren't being baked to a crisp! yet. While most things are late, the garden is growing nicely and we have two regular harvest days (Monday and Thursday) for area seniors and the food shelf. Harvests are modest right now, but as more ripens, I expect we'll add two more days a week and be looking for homes for food on "off" days. Thanks to the handful of volunteers who have been peeking in to do some weeding and watering. It makes a difference and keeps the unwanted growth in check!

Today, Cardy Lewison, myself and four kids had a great time painting the shed and information booth a lovely barn red with white trim. It looks fantastic! In the process, we talked about adding some fun art, maybe in the form of barn quilt on the shed or a mural on the otherwise very unattractive water tank. Wouldn't that be a neat project for some artsy people! Any volunteers?

And speaking of water, we are still in the process of acquiring money to fund the well. So far, we have roughly $3400 towards our goal of $5,000 or so. As long as the weather continues to provide us with cooler temps and some rain, we won't feel the pinch as we have in the past.

Most importantly at this moment is the upcoming second annual PESTO FEST-O

On Saturday, July 19th, beginning at 6 pm. If you came last year, you know we had a great time visiting and sampling pestos and Roger's wine. This is a free event, but donations are always welcome to support the garden.

How it works: People bring in Pesto for others to sample.(This could be you!) People taste all the pestos and vote on their favorite pesto. The Best-o of the Fest-o awards are given. Fame (and not-so-much fortune) follows.

Won't you join us!?

If you do plan to attend and bring some pesto, please drop me an email. I like to have an idea of how many pestos we'll have. I'll be making several kinds to make sure we have an assortment of offering...

Hope you all are having a fantastic summer and I hope to see you at the pesto festo with friends!

Audrey

Hello Friends,

Next Wednesday (May 28) from 9-11 am I have scheduled the 2nd graders to plant the garden with the starters they grew and seeds everywhere else.  The rain date is Thursday, May 29 at the same time.  This is a fun time for the kids and is always enjoyable.  I need 2-4 volunteers to help me out with the groups so they can plant efficiently with assistance.  If you are available, please let me know!

Hello garden friends,

The city has given permission to pursue drilling a well for the purpose of irrigating the garden.  The cost will be $5,000 - $6,000.  We have saved $2,000 over the years, and recently received a $1,000 donation from Ace Communications (AcenTek). Thanks!  Obviously we are still in need of some funds to make this happen.  I will be writing more grants, but if you or anyone you know would like to donate to our water cause, It would be greatly appreciated!

*Saturday, June 14th  Houston County Master Gardeners Garden Tour--we are on the tour this year!  We'll be needing a crew to spiff up to garden prior to the event, so keep your ears open for a call to...weed!

In March, Joan Redig and Irish Britson joined me and kids as we started seeds with the second graders at Houston Elementary.  Teacher Heather Martin is always so accomodating, adn Matt Schuttee has been an excellent caretaker of the grow station. as the 2nd graders themselves tend to the watering and loving everyday.

I transplanted the tomatoes and peppers into larger pots before Easter; and last week, Cardy Lewison and I, with help from Hailey, Krystal Lewison and grandson Dalton, transplanted foundering lettuce and kale into a garden box and tucked some seeds of peas, radishes, beets and spinach into the ground.  

Roger Meyer has pruned the raspberries, my husband Tracy trimmed trees from fenceline, but we still have rotting fenceposts to replace or repair, boxes to mend, and the shed is going to need a new coat of paint this year. Minor stuff, that after six years is to be expected.

The big news this year is that we are working on getting a dedicated water source at the garden in the form of a well. (insert cheers)  Because of our location (in the ponding area, no electricity, to plumbing) getting water is a tricky process, but we have received approval from the state environmental health folks so we can move forward to other folks. We are still working out details, but we have  a cost estimate and are in the process of getting approval from the remaining required parties, and I’ve started writing grants.  In a perfect world, we would have a well installed and a lovely spigot on site by the heat of the summer.  I’m hopeful that everything will fall into place, but that means that a bunch of different departments have to agree and that we acquire $3,000-4,000 to do the job. Wells aren’t cheap!  Having a dedicated water source at the garden is another step in making our garden truly sustainable for the long term.  If anyone has some money you want to donate to the project or experience with Solar power (as we want to use solar to provide electricity to the pump), let me know!

I am still working on possible classes and good food gatherings for the summer and will send those out when finalized, but you can expect that we’ll probably host another Pesto-Festo, and maybe try some movie nights again. There are some new, outstanding documentaries out there that would be worth viewing. We also have a bunch of birdhouse gourds and would love to put together a class for making them into birdhouses!  (I need to see if Mary Thompson would be willing to do this again--hint, hint!) If you have a class idea you’d like to see, please let me know!

For now, Sunday, May 4th at noon, I have scheduled the garden orientation for all renters and volunteers, especially new folks! It looks like we are going to have 8 boxes “rented” out this year, and I look forward to all the smiling faces full of gardening goodness! Weather permitting (as seems to be the case for most things this year) we might spend some time tidying up and prepping for the season.  Feel free to stop out any time, however! It’s always a nice time of year to listen to birds and frogs and marvel at the beauty of nature.

Next Tuesday afternoon/evening from 3-6 pm, I'll be in Caledonia at the Houston County Public Health "fair", sharing information about the Community Garden. There are new SHIP monies available this year and the garden hopes to capitalize on some of the funds to improve what we offer and perhaps help other communities start their own gardens. Stop by and say hi if you're in the neighborhood!

In closing, I’d like to impress upon you how special the Houston Community Garden really is.  In my search for gardens around Southeast Minnesota (and beyond), I’m finding that what we do here is unique and an inspiration to other communities much larger than our own.  Other areas find that community gardens have a strong start but fizzle out within five years, or have difficulty keeping land for gardening because of commercial development aspirations.  No other gardens host education classes or food celebrations like we do. Our connection with the school district and children is also remarkable, and not seen in other gardens of any size I’ve been able to find that aren’t dedicated “school gardens”. And the philosophy of an “open gated” garden that serves so many people is really rare. So I’m grateful to the City of Houston for allowing us the space; to the Friends of the Houston Nature Center who believe in the vision of the garden and how it enhances all of Houston, and the many many volunteers who continue to show up to plant, weed, water, harvest, visit, play and share, even though they have their own gardens at home. 

And if you are reading this, I am thankful for you, too. Your support, if even in spirit, helps the garden grow, now and into the future.

This was a long update, I’ll send out shorter updates with upcoming events as they are planned.  Think Spring! Think warm and sunny days!

Audrey

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Present: Audrey Alfson, Irish Britson, Teresa Erickson, Roger and Lynn Meyer, Matt Schutte, Brenda Grupe

Garden Update: From August 1 - September 19th: 

• 25 different volunteers spent 79 hours on community garden efforts
• renters spent another 30 hours on their own (and community) gardens
• ~217# of food was harvested for the Food Shelf
• ~84# of food was harvested for volunteer use
• ~107# of food was harvested for the Manor and/or Heritage Court

What worked?

• Renting boxes was a great success!
• Matt Schutte enjoyed relatively NO weeds!
• It was nice to have so many folks out there looking out for each other’s beds when needed
• Log book seemed to be working well
• Pesto-Festo was fun

What could be done better or differently?

• Education for renters/gardeners?
• Decrease size of tomato cages by 8-12 inches diameter
• clearly labeling renter boxes
• Having some sort of “permission for ‘friendly harvest’”of renter boxes for food shelf or personal use if renter is unable to harvest for any reason
• Having a contact list for renters for better communication (see above?)
• Need a better map of garden and labels for boxes (Irish said she’d work on something)
• Need better instructions for food within boxes--how to tend or water, etc.
• Need more water!  (perpetual problem!)

Solutions and additions for next year:

• Add a white board inside logbook kiosk. White board can be used to update what foods are ready and notes from gardeners relating to availability of foods within boxes.
• Provide renters with a plastic sign and wire frame to identify their boxes clearly
• Ask/require renters to sign up for two days of the summer (or once a month?) to help with a harvest day for either food shelf or manor or court.
• Ask garden volunteers to consider making a favorite seasonal dish to share for taste-testing when food shelf opens. something flavorful but simple and healthy. Could sign up for a day--once a summer--or more often if inspired...
• Need to continue to make connections with folks to try to get a well/water at the site.
• Matt said he’d see to getting the tank filled up again this fall.

Upcoming Activities:

• Horseradish: Roger Meyer will harvest Horseradish. Please contact him directly if you would like some. He thinks he’ll even process it for you.  Roger’s number is: 894-4361
• Composting Leaves:  Neighbor’s Day is in October (TBA) but leaf collecting begins as soon as leaves start falling in quantity.  Prefer leaves to be mulched, bagged and dropped at garden, but will take unmulched leaves as well.  Roger always needs help (with leaves, that is :). Stay tuned for emails about work opportunities.  This compost is gold for us and so important!
• Garden Clean Up:  As beds are cleaned, any dead plant materials EXCEPT tomato plants can go into the left side of compost bin.  Tomato plants will need to be placed in separate pile for composting elsewhere. Leave as much dirt in beds as possible.
• Finished compost (on right side of compost bin) will be added to all beds at end of October/beginning of November. Typically 3 wheelbarrow loads per big 4X16 box and a small wheelbarrow load per 4X4 box.
• Audrey will plant garlic in first part of November. (It’s a good time to get your own in the ground, too!)
• Annual wine and cheese fundraiser will be held sometime in January, probably at the community center, as available. More info will follow.

Food Shelf Update and Needs:

• Teresa Erickson, President of the food shelf, spoke about the needs of the Food Shelf. 
• They typically serve 20 families a week, sometimes up to 30 families each week.
• More than money, they need volunteers: Board members, folks to help stock the food shelf mid-week (prior to Thursday disbursement day), folks to help order, pick up and receive orders.  
• The time commitment can be small, but the effect can be huge! They have few people doing almost everything.  Can anyone help? Do you know someone who might be interested in helping out?
• Board meetings are the 2nd Wednesday of each month from 5-6 pm @ St. Mary’s church.
• Contact Teresa Erickson for more information: [email protected]

I think that’s it!

Have a wonderful week!

Audrey

Hello everyone!

The days are definitely getting shorter and the cooler temperatures are not far behind!  If you've been at the garden lately, you'll notice that many of the beds are cleaned out and we're harvesting mainly tomatoes, peppers, celery, basil (still!), a few kohlrabi and remaining cucumbers. This week it looks like the green beans have decided to just stop producing. Which is fine by most, I think.  (How many green beans does a person need after all? Our handful of squash should be ready in the coming weeks.

Welcome to fall!

This thursday I will be at the garden around 9 am instead of 2 pm for harvesting and watering. (this will allow me to attend and help out at my son's cross country meet in La Crescent that afternoon.)  if anyone wants to join me, please do!  It's just absolutely lovely out there this time of year. (then again, when isn't it lovely out there?