As the golden sunshine and long shadows of autumn arrive, the time is ripe to plant greens for harvest at Halloween!  This afternoon Eliza Sutton gave an informative and interactive talk on a variety of topics, including: crops we can plant right now, extending the growing season, monitoring plants and managing pests, cover crops, and putting our gardens to bed for winter.  We will distribute notes from the workshop to garden members, and provide some materials and resources for end-of-season activities.

This morning a group of garden members and neighbors arrived at the garden to find a steaming pile of wood chips (already composting!) awaiting distribution.  With shovels, pitch forks, wheelbarrows, and good cheer, the hefty pile was spread throughout the garden by noontime.  In addition to our mulching operation, we gave away flower and vegetable seeds, and Frey Gardens provided seedlings for sale to the community.

The garden is now ready for the growing season.  Hoses are connected, and watering cans are waiting.  The City will turn the water on soon.  Meanwhile, April showers are taking care of the watering, and the first glorious sprouts are coming up!

Thanks to our neighbors who came by to greet us and help out today, to the City of Providence Department of Parks and Recreation (including the Forestry Division, which provided the mulch), the Partnership for Providence Parks, the office of Mayor Jorge O. Elorza and his Earth Day Spring Cleaning initiative, and to Seven Stars Bakery for the free coffee!  And thanks to Mother Nature for waiting to rain in earnest until we finished in the garden (once again, we were lucky with the weather).

Many, many thanks to all who have helped to create our beautiful Community Garden, years in the making, and so full of potential.

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Garden members and neighbors showed up in force to move seemingly endless piles of dirt into our raised beds this weekend!  Enormous gratitude goes out to everyone who showed up, with shovels, rakes, and wheelbarrows in hand, to make a heavy task lighter for all.

And thanks to Kerry Kohring, who got some wonderful action shots, and wrote a great article about our project for the Summit Neighborhood Association website.

Members of the Summit Neighborhood Community Garden built their garden beds at the Summit Avenue Playground on Saturday, April 8th.  Workers broke into teams to build the beds and line them with landscape cloth.  Two of the raised beds are double height, to accommodate gardeners with limited mobility.  The garden will be completed over the next few weeks, with plans to finish up on Earth Day.

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Does anyone need to buy some plants to get your garden plot started this year?

Michael Bradlee is one of the newest members at Summit Neighborhood Community Garden (SNCG), but he has a lot of gardening experience. He grows his own Vegetables and Herbs at Frey Gardens (next to Frey Florist and Greenhouse), where he has a Community Food Scrap Collection and oversees the Community Garden there.

Details from Michael:
“If the SNCG would be interested in obtaining plants from me, I’ve enclosed a spreadsheet with the plants and prices.  The form can be filled out and returned to me.  See contact information in email sent to gardeners.

It’s cash n carry, no Credit Cards

Any questions, please let me know!

Thank you,
Michael

• Excel Files:
  Vegetables_Frey_Gardens_Plant_List_2017_Final
  Herbs_Frey_Gardens_Plant_List_2017_Final
• PDF versions:
  Vegetables_Frey_Gardens_Plant_List_2017_Final
  Herbs_Frey_Gardens_Plant_List_2017_Final

On Sunday March 25, 2017, the building committee installed the green fence and re-measured bed and shed areas.

The green coated wire fence was modeled after the Brown Street community garden (see photo below), with the wire fencing attached to the inside of the wood rail fence to keep all the hammered fasteners and any rough edges on the inside of the garden and not facing the play areas.

The re-measuring raised some questions about the optimal position for the garden shed, which may require some shifts in garden bed locations, but that discussion is still continuing, and we’ll have it all figured out before the bed build dates.

If anyone has feedback or photos to share, feel free to fill out the contact form in this website, or email directly to: summitgardenpvd@gmail.com

Thanks to everyone who came out to work on the sunny, then cloudy/cold day.  We’re moving forward thanks to the team effort!

2017 Neighborhood Urban Agriculture Kick-off at the Sessions St Community Garden!

Hello East Side Gardeners,

We hope you will join us at the Sessions Street Community Garden for the Neighborhood Urban Agriculture Kick-off on Saturday, April 8th from 11am-1pm (raindate Sunday, April 9th).

Bring your SCLT membership card or sign up at the event if you are not already a member, and pick up your 50 gallons of compost.

We’ll have food trucks, live music and children’s activities! Browse the free seed table and decide what you’d like to grow this year. Experts will be on hand from 11-1 to answer your questions about organic gardening and pest control. Everyone is welcome!

See you at the Neighborhood Urban Ag Kick-off,
Kate Lacouture

Sessions Street Community Garden
160 Sessions Street, just east of Elmgrove Ave.
Providence, Rhode Island 02906
401-996-4922
click here for map

All-Gardener meeting

Monday, February 13th at 7:00 PM
at Summit Commons
99 Hillside Ave, in the Dining Room

We’ll talk about:

– Garden bed allocation;
– Scheduling garden bed build days (we’re looking ahead to the weekends of April 8 & 9; 15 & 16);
– Governance document amendment;
– Committee formation to address:
Garden Building;
Educational Programming;
Sustainability (including compost, water harvesting);
Build-out of the playground.

A more complete agenda will be sent out with a reminder a few days prior to the meeting.

Please be in touch if you have any questions. We look forward to seeing you!

All best ~ Nancy Buron, for the Summit Neighborhood Community Garden Steering Committee