Rotary Community Garden and Food Forest of Coral Springs

Come Out and See What’s Growing! 

It’s early yet, but 2013 is looking like an abundant (and fruitful!) year for our garden club.  In fact, we just donated our second round of fresh produce to the Pentecostal Gospel Temple Ministries in Margate. According to devoted volunteer and rotary garden club member, Lee S. the church’s food pantry was delighted to receive 44 pounds of assorted fresh veggies; these included huge heads of broccoli, kale, string beans and collards. He said a line of folks had already formed when he drove up with the goods.

At its inception 4 years ago, our garden did not yet have the concept of donating. The community area concept sort of grew along with us, or maybe helped grow us…..  Today, we can proudly say we’ve met the goal of donating twice. We look forward to returning to the food shelter with our new bounty once it’s harvested. Lee says he’s excited to see what comes up from the watermelon, zucchini and squash seeds just planted. 

If you have a well-maintained garden plot, by all means bring a friend and show them around. They’ll be amazed at the waist high crops that include everything from big plump tomatoes, to heads of cabbage big enough to hide in. Gardener Lee says he cooked up his cabbage harvest last night and it was to die- for-good. Another gardener mentioned being delighted by her haul in okra—especially after a visit to the grocery store confirmed that less than a pound of okra costs over $4!

Yes, indeed the mindset of a community gardener is perhaps the most perfect one to have in times of climate change and economic uncertainty—and it sure is wonderful to eat too, not to mention pretty to look at. Stop by some time to admire the brightly colored flowers that border the garden; water a friend’s rosebush or simply pay it forward with a little weeding. Once you pay your annual dues and get the combination to enter the garden, the rest is a snap(pea) ; )!!

Find Out How to Be a Part of our 2013 Goals

Since our goals for the new year include creating a nice, meandering gravel pathway, gazebo for shady meetings, and 4 or 5 new plots, your interest in our garden is more than welcome. For more information, click the contact link. Now go and peace to love and serve your garden bed.

We had a great turnout, greeted some wonderful new gardeners, built seven more garden plots and did some garden maintenance.

Signing up new gardeners!

Doing some maintenance:

Building new plots!

Look at all these new plots!

Resting and socializing….

Next gathering and sign-up is September 21, 5 to 7 pm.  See you there!

The 2012/2013 gardening season is almost here! Hard to believe this is already our fourth year! We hope you have been having a good summer, and getting some time to rest.  We had a great activity day with our Boy Scouts troop last month – and Jen’s Max who worked his heart out: some serious mulching of the paths was accomplished.  The garden is looking beautiful! Obviously, things get slower – and weedier – in the summer.  We give our plots and ourselves a break from the heat… but, some can’t stay away for long….  We have been learning more about what thrives in the heat, and what is perennial in our climate, such as Okinawa spinach, calaloo and katuk.  Still the main season begins now.

It is time to renew garden plots.  We will also be building some new plots and welcome new gardeners.  We keep growing! See the new contract by clicking on the tab of the page above.  And see our facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/groups/107678445929613.

More gardeners are moving beyond their boxes and joining those who are developing the potential of the whole garden – and even beyond the fence to our beautiful trees to the west and the view of the water to the north – as a place for themselves, families, friends and local community.  Rosa regularly brings children and families to the garden and has brought to us a beautiful edible and educational area on the east side. Satya discovers and shares amazing and beautiful plants: the winged Asian beans and gourds she planted on the west fence are abundant!

Anne shares insights from her decades of organic gardening.   Carolyn quietly shows up and instantly sees and does what needs organizing on gathering days.  The row crops Lee planted produced much food for donation last year as did the circle garden lovingly tended by our Girl Scouts troop and other gardeners.   Paul has contributed hours of weed-whacking, and Hector started helping from when he first came, even helping build his own garden plot last year. You can’t keep Jackie away from beautifying the entranceway and collecting, planting and giving away seeds and plants. Judi and Marga, along with some Permaculture Miami friends, put in the Banana/Papaya circle garden, possible partly through generous donations from Carol and Rosa.  And Steve keeps track of our plots, our gardeners, our needs and our money!  And Jackie, Steve, Judi and Lee spend many hours a year keeping the garden on track and running.

We will be meeting in September to sign garden contract plots, go over guidelines, sign-up for work details, share ideas, information, seeds and seedlings, skills and talents, food and fun.  Our first gathering is Saturday, September 15 2012, during the day, times to be announced, and it will include plot-building. Our second gathering will be Friday evening, September 21.

See you in the garden!

Your garden advisory committee: Jackie, Steve, Judi and Lee

We are entering our fourth year!  So stay tuned…
Also, notice our links to various gardening calendars – what to plant when:  It is time to start planning for the Fall Season!

On Saturday, January 21, we had an amazing work/play/gather day!  Community gardeners, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, some Rotarians and garden friends all turned out to help!  We are so grateful!  The weather was beautiful, the mood cheerful, and so much got done, as you will see in the photos to follow.

We built five new garden plots, which were immediately turned over to eager gardeners ( we will build more plots as soon as we can to accommodate those on the waiting list).

Girl Scouts working on building a new plot

Some members of the Boy Scouts and their scoutmaster  fixed up  our donated large picnic table!

The Girl Scouts were a big part of the picking and gathering of fresh beautiful veggies such as broccoli, cabbage, spinach, lettuce and others,for donation!  Mainly from the donation row crops and the Girl Scouts “slice” of the mandala garden, and also from individual gardeners.  Thank you to all who donated!

As of a few days ago, we have donated a total of 106 lbs. of food!!!  We are excited about being part of this great community in this way!

Come join us!

 

We are filling up the Mandala/Circle – see the photos  above-

and the following photos capture moments in the garden where so much life is growing

The following five (5)  photos were taken by talented photographer Cheryl Harker Devlin:  They are too rich to experience more than a few at a time.  More to come very soon!

– photo by one of our gardeners, Jen Russon.  Jen also blogs about good food and eating.

photographed by the garden’s resident photographer Cheryl Harker Devlin.

The next few photos are by the community garden committee:

With growing plants come butterflies, bees and garden friends….

For the last couple of months, we have been fortunate to have Troop 10717 working in the garden:  they have taken responsibility for one row crop, a slice of the circle garden, and nurture plants along the entrance fence.  We are so delighted to have them!

Some of Troop 10717 in front of their veggies:

The garden is looking so beautiful!  Walk around and you see tomatoes, eggplant, Taro, all kinds of lettuces, spinach, amaranth, marigolds, broccoli, cauliflower…. and more…

Take a breath and you breathe in the delightful fragrances of rosemary, basil, mint…. and not just one kind of each but thai basil, chocolate mint, lemon basil…

Stop and look at the lake and the see the birds diving, the butterflies flying… See one gardener over here watering.  Over there, two are laughing and exchanging advice about gardening, clippings of herbs, tomatoes, peppers and seeds.

Lettuces, and spinaches are ripe to be harvested regularly, and gardeners are patiently waiting on tomatoes!  There are strawberries ripening! For the next few months, something will be ready to be harvested and enjoyed, while lots of other things are growing!

Here are some pics.  More will follow.

I leave the garden with lettuce and broccoli from my plot, rosemary and lemon grass from one neighbor, chocolate mint from another, and a smile on my face.

A neighbour gardener tells me he’s been thrilled to supply his family with lettuce for months – fresh, delicious lettuce he’d grown with his own hands, rather than purchased at the grocery store.