Community Gardening Network Meeting

Join the Network in celebrating 10 years of community gardening at the Blue Heron Park Community Garden in the City of Phoenix on June 18 at 4:00. Bring a finger food to share, learn about the plans to expand this wonderful garden.

Grant opportunity! Due December 6th

Child-Centered Garden Programs Funded
National Gardening Association: Youth Garden Grants
The National Gardening Association (NGA), awards Youth Garden Grants to schools and community organizations throughout the U.S. with child-centered garden programs. Applicant schools and organizations must plan to garden with at least 15 children between the ages of 3 and 18. Twenty programs will receive a $500 gift certificate to the Gardening with Kids online store. Each program will also receive a tool package from Ames, plant starts from Bonnie Plants, and a seed donation from High Mowing Seeds. The selection of winners is based on the demonstrated relationship between the garden program and education related to the environment, health and nutrition issues, character education, and entrepreneurship in the United States. The application deadline is December 6, 2013. Application guidelines and forms are available on the NGA website.

http://grants.kidsgardening.org/2014-youth-garden-grant

 

 

Dan's Garden Video Shoot

Master Gardener Mary Foster was filmed for a Dan's Garden segment on KDRV channel 12 about community gardens which will air on May 28th. 

Jefferson Elementary Creates Fifth School Garden in Medford

Mail Tribune Story from May 13, 2013

Working with Rogue Valley Farm to School, Jefferson Elementary School in Medford has established the fifth school garden in the Medford School District. Students and volunteers helped prepare and plant the garden on May 4.

Jefferson Elementary School teacher Jureen Gardner led the effort, establishing a garden committee at the school and obtaining a Medford Schools Foundation grant.

Kelly Eaton, a Rogue Valley Farm to School board member and a landscape designer with Laurie Sager & Associates, contacted local businesses to pull together materials and labor.

In addition to Jefferson, Medford schools involved in the garden projects are Jackson, Washington and Oak Grove elementary schools and Madrone Trail Charter School.

The Farm to School program also is providing training and support to Kids Unlimited staff, who will involve students in the garden throughout the summer. Kids Unlimited uses Jefferson and Jackson school gardens for its summer camp programs, allowing students access to the gardens during the height of the growing season.

Ashland, Central Point and Grants Pass school districts also are working with Rogue Valley Farm to School garden coordinators.

The school garden programs involve students, parents, teachers and community members in garden activities. Coordinators are trained to work with volunteers on the project and are supplied with seeds, plants, curriculum and teaching materials.

The Jefferson school garden measures 60 by 120 feet, is fenced and will hold 14 irrigated raised beds. Future phases include tilled rows, a perennial garden, a compost area, a greenhouse, a tool shed and an outdoor classroom.

Harvest of Love

Mail Tribune Story from August 19, 2009 

By By Mary Salisbury

A sign placed in the soil reads: "Plant kindness. Harvest love."

Kit Nilles' quiet inspiration proved one of the creative forces behind the community garden on the corner of North Fifth and Ivy streets in Medford. Kit is the garden manager and a member of St. Mark's Episcopal Church Outreach Program. She and her husband, Jerry, helped build this corner.

Five small children run into the garden clutching watering cans, the red, green and blue colors flashing in the sun. The children water the tomatoes they helped plant and play in the dirt before splashing their hands in buckets of water. Kit watches with a wide smile. The youngsters attend the Family Nurturing Center next door, and the center partners with St. Mark's in the Community Garden Project.

"The idea came up in a whole bunch of places all at once," Kit explains. The land, vacant and full of weeds, was "just sitting here waiting for a plan," she adds. St. Mark's and the Family Nurturing Center combined forces. The church owns the lot; the center pays for insurance. The Maslow Project tends a corner on the north end of the garden, full of corn, squash and beans. DASIL — Disability Advocacy for Social and Independent Living — cares for a bed. The Medford Youth Cooperative, part of The Job Council, joins local high school students growing vegetables for ACCESS Inc., the county's emergency food bank.

The Job Council's Rogue Valley YouthBuild program dispatched a crew of young men and women to construct the garden shed. A bin is brimming with compost donated by Rogue Disposal & Recycling. The top soil was a gift from Twin Creeks of Central Point.

On May 20, participants celebrated opening day, and keys to the shed were given to all gardeners who had signed up and paid the nominal fee to cultivate their own beds. Each plot is now bursting with zucchini, tomato, basil, squash, lettuce, flowers and more.

Neighbors who have purchased their own patches come out and visit while they water. One man brings his folding chair. Laughter spills out of a house next door. This is all part of what Kit had hoped would happen.

On the first Sunday of every month from 1 to 3 p.m., Kit organizes a work party. Gardeners pull weeds along the wooden fence constructed with help from the Rogue Valley After Five Rotary Club. Kit's husband, Jerry, cut each board.

Kit dreams up plans for next year. She envisions a Willow Tunnel leading to a Fairy Garden and an arbor erected next to the shed to provide shade. A future planting of an ABC garden along the north fence line would feature flowers beginning with the letters of the alphabet.

When the children have finished their gardening, they return to the Family Nurturing Center. Their bright-red wheelbarrow and child-sized gardening tools are back in the storage shed. A group of vegetable starts sits beneath a sign that reads: "Free plants for our gardeners."

This community garden is an organic one. Each participant has signed a contract agreeing to care for a designated bed, pull weeds and attend monthly gatherings. At these events everyone works on a project together.

At noon, a young mother holding a baby on her hip wanders in. Her face fills with wonder. She surveys the beds of flowers and vegetables. "I used to live right across the street," she tells Kit, who acknowledges the compliment evident in her visitor's voice.

A wind chime suspended from a white pole-bean support stirs, its bright fuchsia and purple reflecting light. Kit expresses gratitude for a recent generous donation from The Carpenter Foundation and the work of St. Mark's Outreach. "This would have been a good project if its only purpose had been to grow vegetables. But it is so much more. A community has grown up around a beautiful spot."

Community Garden Meeting

Join us at the next Community Garden Meeting of Jackson County on Wednesday May 15th fro 4:00 - 5:30pm at the Talent Library.

Plant Sale

The Spring Garden Fair may be over but there are still plants in the Practicum that need good homes.  The After Sale will be held 9:00-3:00 Saturday 5/11 in the Arboretum at the OSU Extension.  All plants will be half price!  Spread the word.  Tell your friends, neighbors, family.