A unique and viable approach to establishing local food self-reliance and building stronger communities.

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Growing Gratitude

Dear Friends and supporters of the Sharing Gardens - Well, it's been almost six months since we last posted!

We just finished our eighth season, have a core group of 6-10 sharegivers who help us in the garden, deepening relationships with our neighbors, and we're still sending close to 5,000 pounds of fresh, organic produce -- free of charge--to two local food pantries. That's in addition to the sizable harvests our sharegivers take home each week to feed their families and can/dehydrate for winter-use.

Our website continues to have anywhere from 3,000 to 9,000 visits per month from all over the world  from people interested in how our project works and how to grow food in the methods we use.

Oregon State University, with their commitment to 'service-learning' has sent us close to 75 students in 2016 for volunteer time in the gardens. Here's a delightful video made by Trent Toney, one of the OSU students, that gives you a glimpse into a typical service-learning day at the Gardens. Enjoy! LINK

This post highlights many of the people and organizations who help us be in service to the world. Enjoy!

Gradually, people in our small town are beginning to see the Sharing Gardens as a place to share their surplus - whether that be building materials, canning and garden-supplies, yard "waste" or fruits and veggies.

Mulches Gracias

Leaves, a renewable natural resource.
Because we practice an organic method of farming that uses large amounts of organic materials (leaves, grass, kitchen-scraps) it has been important to develop relationships with our "neighbors" to keep a strong supply coming. Our town does not provide a yard-waste pick up service so this valuable resource is often burned or left to rot in the corner of people's yards where it benefits no one. Currently we receive leaves and/or grass clippings from six families in our community. These are - Cathy and Roger Coy, Jo and David Crosby, George and Irene Daugherty, Jody Kahn, Victor Stone and Michelle and Al Copeland. Thanks so much! Keep 'em coming!

Grass, donated by neighbors, increases garden fertility.
Chris and David Crosby - unloading a composted horse manure delivery.

Michelle and her partner, Al convinced the people they do yard-work for, to buy this large wheelbarrow so they could bring us grass clippings once a week from a block away.
Much of the organic material we receive is placed directly on the soil as a top-dressing or mulch. This feeds the worms, bacteria and fungi below. With the surplus, we build compost piles. The finished compost is used for planting in the spring. (Deep Mulch Method: LINK)

Llyn layering grass and leaves in a compost-ring. Minimum 3-foot diameter.
Service-learning students help to turn our compost piles.

Finished compost can be added to potting soil, mixed into planting holes or used as mulch around plants.

It takes a village...

There are many ways people support the sharing gardens. Here are some of this year's donors:


Our neighbors Donna and John Dillard have been very generous this year donating apples and pears, metal roofing, welded-wire fencing and all the firewood we could handle off a huge oak tree cut down in their yard. That will keep us warm for several winters!
Eva (above), also brought many bushels of apples gleaned from her neighbor's tree.

John Kinsey (left) has a backyard worm farm. He feeds his worms food scraps and coffee grounds. The worm-poo (castings) provides excellent soil-fertility. John donates worm castings and surplus coffee-grounds he collects weekly from a local coffee-shop. (Pictured with garlic seeds).

Steve Rose (right) has made many generous donations over the years --tomato starts, hundreds of gallon pots, bamboo, and more. This year he's provided us with spores from the Wine Red Stropharia mushrooms with which we have successfully inoculated a wood-chip pile. Delicious! Here he is giving a lesson in grafting fruit-trees. Steve is a fountain of knowledge and a real local treasure.

Monroe's United Methodist church had a long stretch of fence-boards they wanted removed. Here's Chris (above) de-nailing them for re-use as bird-houses and fencing around the gardens.

This year we extended our wire fence to encompass almost the full three acres of the property. We ran into some problems in late winter because the ground was too wet to pour cement for wooden corner posts. The gardens were open to local deer and we suffered some significant damage to our fruit-tree saplings and new spring crops. Our dear friend Rob (left) came to the rescue. He put in several long sessions with Chris, pounding metal posts and hanging the fence once we got the corner posts in. It was a huge help!

Oregon State Univ. students continue to come each term and provide volunteer help in the gardens. They receive credit and hands-on experience and we receive a huge amount of help! We have hosted close to 75 students in 2016 for four-hours each. Wow, do they get a lot done! Our biggest challenge is to provide enough tasks to keep them busy. Their time with us always includes a popcorn break when we engage them in rich conversations about organic gardening and sustainability. These students were transplanting tomato seedlings.
A recent student group leader wrote:
 "Thank you so much for having us participate in the Sharing Gardens. Our group appreciated everything you and Chris taught us today! I want to thank you for everything you do in helping to make your community better each and every day. We had a blast today and we want to also thank you for welcoming us into your home and passing your knowledge to us!"
We provide free produce to two Food Pantries. One of them is just a wheelbarrow's ride away (South Benton Food Pantry) but Local Aid is almost 10-miles from us. We're grateful to Pete Alford for coming weekly to drive our donation to Local Aid. We don't have a picture of Pete but the smiling faces above are volunteers at Local Aid, receiving our donation.

Llyn's mom, Judy Peabody continues to make a large cash donation each year. Thanks, Mom! Sandy and Andy (not pictured) have also made annual donations for several years in a row.

Meet Janeece and her right-hand man Dave Cook. Janeece took over the management of the South Benton Food Pantry a few years ago and has done a fantastic job. She has changed it into a "shopping style" pantry so, instead of each family getting the same contents in their boxes, they may choose the foods that their families will use. Janeece has also become an avid label-reader and has begun providing whole-grain, less processed and organic foods when available. In the time she has been manager we notice a real increase in the customers' awareness around food choices and greater attraction for the fresh fruits and veggies being offered. Earlier this Fall, Janeece went before her Board and advocated for financial support for the Sharing Gardens. The $500 annual stipend was approved unanimously by the Board with a retroactive $500 for 2015. We are now automatically included in their budget each year. We are so grateful for the growing sense of partnership with the Cooks and South Benton Food Pantry.

Meet Jim and Cindy Kitchen. Jim's holding about half of last year's kidney-bean harvest while Cindy can be found in her usual weekly task of rinsing beets. These two have become like family to us. Cindy discovered us back in 2010 when we made a presentation about community gardens. She wanted to start one with her church and was comparing models. She decided the SG was the way to go and tried for a season to get one started, coming weekly to our gardens for tips and inspiration. Well, her church garden didn't work out but she and Jim and their granddaughter, Adri began to be some of our steadiest participants. Cindy is known for keeping her eye out for organic foods on sale that she knows we'll like and quietly slipping them into our fridge or pantry when we're not looking; or finding garden-supplies at yard sales and leaving them in our garden shed for later discovery. She and Jim also made a cash donation this year to offset the cost of supplies. The big surprise came back in the Spring when they noticed we'd asked for a refurbished computer on our wishlist to replace our ancient desk-top model. Jim did the research and found us a wonderful computer that's lightening fast and able to keep up with all its needed updates. You guys are great!

Lest we give the wrong impression that the Sharing Gardens is successfully supported by our community, financial donations in 2016 were $950. The balance of costs to run the garden come entirely out of our own funds. If you're inspired by what we do and wish to see it thrive and grow, please be generous. All donations are tax-deductible. (See our wish list for info on donations - Wish list LINK).

The Sharing Gardens would not be complete without its community of sharegivers. These people come week after week and help with whatever garden tasks are needed - from planting and mulching to weeding and harvesting. We thank you!

Kat, Chris, Jim, Cindy and Rook. Just look at all those tomatoes!

Jim, Llyn, Chris, Rob, Sabine and Doreen surrounding part of a week's harvest. (Elisa, not pictured).
Each year I'm filled with joy and wonder at the beauty of the garden-harvests. The plants seem to know they're being grown to be shared and give with all of Nature's generosity.

Delicious celery.

Sweet Meat squash. great for pies!

Striped German tomatoes (left) and Black Krims (rt.). We grew 87 plants this year - all Heirloom varieties so we can save our own seed.
A very good year for peppers!
Thank you for your support of the Sharing Gardens!




Saturday, May 14, 2016

Sharing the Gardens with Wild Critters

Little Adri, picking dandelion heads.
When I was a little girl, walking the few, quiet, tree-lined blocks to school, I used to pretend I was a benevolent queen for the critters and plants along the way. When I saw a plant who's stem had broken, I'd lean it on its neighbors and instruct them to take care of their wounded comrade till strength and vigor returned. A pair of doves lived in the neighborhood and I enjoyed their crooning as if they were calling out to me personally as I passed. I imagined that when I was "grown up" I'd like to have a house that was so full of plants and critters inside that you couldn't quite tell when you left outside.

Sometimes it seems I got my wish (though I'm not sure I ever did grow up)!  I have to admit, now that it's up to me and Chris to do the housekeeping (thanks, Mom for all those years that it was mainly your job!) that I've had to reconsider just how much of the house I want to share with the 'creepy-crawlies' and the 'skitterers'.

House-plants on the porch, in summer...

...become part of winter's interior decor.
We don't really enjoy clouds of fruit-flies. House-flies can be awfully annoying as they buzz about or land on my nose when I'm trying to catch a little afternoon nap. Enter: Homer. Homer is the name we give to all the spiders that have colonized the many window-corners in our house. The bedroom window is home to multiple generations of ambush-hunters.  They don't build webs but lurk out of site and rush in to gobble up the gnats and fruit-flies that are drawn to window-light.

Some big, brown spiders are the masters of the web. In the Fall, when the flies get lazy and repeatedly bap their heads against the windows trying to get out, inevitably a few of them stray into web-land only to be wrapped in silk and saved for later times when food is scarce and Mama Spider needs extra sustenance to lay her clutch of eggs thus beginning the cycle anew.

This isn't the kind of spiders we have in our house but, you've got to admit he's cute!
Though we meant to seal all the nooks and crannies that a Mouse might enter, in a 141 year-old house, it's nearly impossible to find every one! During the summer months the pickin's are always better outside so we don't see much evidence of the little squeekers. But as nights get cold and the gardens are put to bed, the farmhouse gains in appeal. We have a few live-traps that we bait with peanut butter and cereal. A dish of water and some bedding adds to the appeal. Each morning, part of our winter routine is to see if anyone has checked into the Deluxe Mouse-Shuttle.

At first, before the winter rains started in earnest, the Mice received a one-way ticket to the compost bins. This gave them a ready food source while they established winter living quarters. But as winter wore on, we began to feel concern that, without shelter nearby, the mice would likely perish slowly from the cold/wet conditions so we began releasing them into one of the greenhouses. This worked fine...for awhile. Everyone was happy and the stream of House-Mice dwindled.

But then came pea-planting time. We like to start peas in the greenhouses so we have an earlier harvest.

Sara picking greenhouse peas.
Guess who has a taste for baby pea shoots...ah, yes, the Greenhouse-Mouse-Family. So, what to do? Have you ever put too much cayenne powder on something you were cooking? Did its heat bite your tongue? Did it make you sneeze? Well, it turns out it has the same effect on Mice! A few applications of the hot-powder sprinkled on the seedlings cured the Mice of their culinary habits! Problem solved.

Now that it's warm again, the compost piles are back to being the home of choice. Plenty of food to go around there!

Summer-time, and there's lots to eat, outside!
We have a family of ground squirrels living in our walls. We began noticing the mama squirrel a year ago, sunning herself atop our wood-pile and making furtive visits to our bird-feeders to fill her cheeks with sunflower seeds and millet. We'd heard her scrabbling in our walls and were amazed at her capacity for digging by burrowing under a 6-foot wide cement pad to have her exit hole from the house be as close as possible to this free and easy food source. We didn't realize she was "with-child" though until one day she appeared at our dining-room window to let us know that, "The bird-feeder is empty and I'm hungry!".

As she sat on the window-sill, we could see that she'd been nursing her babies. Once she knew she had our attention she hopped down to the porch and put her paws on the container of bird-seed, looking over her shoulder at us. She then hopped back up on the sill and peered through the glass as if to underline her point..."Where's my supper?!". Needless to say, we fed her right away and kept it up till we knew she'd weaned the babes and so could forage wider-afield.

Mama Squirrel and Chris eyeing each other.

Adri cleaning the bird-bath
Chris and I feel  happy knowing that our home and gardens provide shelter and food for so much wildlife. Each year we add a few more birdhouses, plant more bird and butterfly-food among the peppers and squash, peas and beans. The brush-pile has become a small hill full of nooks and crannies -- home to many critters. The clusters of un-mowed berry-bushes and grass-lands grow in size. Bunnies, snakes and birds increasingly call our home, their home.

It is a "sharing" garden, after all!

Update: Lest you think we're living in some sort of Utopia, in perfect balance with the wild critters around us...Just hours after I first published this post, I went walking in the gardens and discovered a big ol' bunny happily making its way down a row of cabbage and lettuce and helping himself to every third or fourth plant. Arrrgh! Guess who's going to be surprised when he comes back tonight and finds a dusting of cayenne has been added to the buffet!?

 

The Sharing Gardens is a non-profit and tax-exempt organization. We exist entirely through donations. If you have found benefit from our project or our site, please consider making a donation through PayPal. (Click button below.)

Friday, March 11, 2016

Sowing Seeds of Generosity


Sowing Seeds of Generosity - Service-Learning at the Sharing Gardens
You'd think that there wouldn't be much to do during the winter months in a garden. It's true, things do slow down a bit but it's amazing how much there still is to get done! We've had a variety of repair and restoration projects to attend to as well as pruning, turning compost piles, sifting soil and preparing garden beds. We're expanding our fence-line (again!) and constructing another greenhouse. As of February, we've begun planting seedlings for our use and to support other "sharing"-type gardens in the area. Here is a gallery of some of the garden-highlights from the winter season at the Sharing Gardens including pictures of many of the students who have come to help from a local university.

The ribs of our fourth, biggest and final (!) greenhouse (30' x 50')
We scored a huge stack of free lumber. Chris has been "ripping" it on the table-saw for various garden-uses: domes, tomato A-frame "ladders" and stakes.

We've cut, assembled and painted pieces for two domes. Pictured here are pieces for the larger one. This will be set up in our orchard, under an oak tree providing a little "get-away" for overnight campers.

Here's Chris painting one of the pieces for the smaller dome - an eye-catching centerpiece for the garden that our smallest gardeners can play on, and around.
Here's Llyn pruning the old apple-tree. It had been sorely neglected so it's taking a few years to bring it down in height and to balance the weight of its branches.
Winter provides time for indoor crafts. Here's Llyn making a rug with strips of old blankets....
...and painting signs in the art "studio" we set up in the dining room.

Planting the tower.
Chris found plans for this strawberry tower and, using materials we already had lying around, built, and filled this beautiful and productive (we hope!) "fountain of food".
It's been a wet winter in Oregon (thank goodness, as the mountain snow-pack was getting dangerously low). Here's a picture of our rain-water collection system (we shut down the outside water-lines in winter). Rainwater is actually more beneficial to plants than ground water, it contains nitrogen and sulphur in a form readily accessible - LINK.
Our relationship with Oregon State University (OSU) continues to deepen. We had 23 students participate in "service-learning" projects this winter. Typically we'll have six students, for four hours at a time. We stage a variety of projects for them to do. Their time with us also includes a popcorn break (seasoned with Bragg's Liquid Aminos - kinda like soy-sauce - and nutritional yeast - also known as "hippie dust" yum!). During this break we engage them in conversations about sustainability and the state of the environment. Sadly, for most, it seems that deep conversations of this nature are a rarity and we must coax them to express themselves freely. But, once they relax, many share openly about the many challenges their generation is facing and the hopes they have for making the world a better place. Very gratifying! Though many of them are unfamiliar with using simple hand-tools, they eagerly embrace the opportunity to learn. And all of them, it seems, truly relish the simple pleasure of getting their hands in the dirt!

Ally and Athira process willow cuttings for re-planting in our wetlands restoration project in the soggy corner of our land.
Jennie, Stevie and Llyn empty compost bins to build up soil in the gardens.
Reilly sifts coffee - a fantastic soil-amendment - while Chris breathes in the wonderful aroma!
Cameron cuts the bottoms off pots (to be used as collars for young plants' protection) while Aaron sifts soil so it is fine enough for starting seedlings.
Llyn and Tara prepare garden-beds by digging in grass clippings and leaves.

Tomena and Tara use the cart to gather tree-prunings. These are added to a brush pile in the back part of the land to provide habitat for birds and small animals. Logan carries 'cages' he's pulled off our grape vines in preparation for pruning.
Ashley and Nicki transplant tomatoes.
Winter is a time for repairs and restoration...Stevie adds some bright color to one of the saw-horses. We can use your old, exterior paint. CLICK HERE to see our complete wish-list.
This picture, taken March 5th, shows the greenhouse filling with baby seedlings. The season has begun!
Chris and Alex turning the compost pile. "You can never have too much compost!"
Morgan gently holds one of the two baby garter snakes we found clearing mulch from one of the greenhouse garden-beds. We also found a little lizard that day too. Organic gardening provides habitat to a multitude of critters.

This winter we were invited to give a slide-show at OSU for one of the classes in sustainable living that sends us service-learning students.

There were about 35 students in the class. We began by giving them a brief overview of the Sharing Gardens and then opened it up for questions. We're always happy to see that interest in our project goes beyond the simple "how-to's" of gardening and delves deeper into the philosophy of caring and generosity that the project is based on.
Service-learning students must complete a final project - either a poster, or a power-point presentation. We like to attend the poster-presentations. Very inspiring to see the final projects of over 150 students performing all kinds of community-service.
To Bella, our dear, little friend, service-learning comes naturally!
We are always so appreciative of the willingness to be of service that we witness in the students who come help us in the gardens. At the end of the day, a student asked me where to put the hand-tools his group had been using and I waved him to the greenhouse. "Oh, just put them in there," I said (so they'd be safe from the pending rain). Imagine my delight when I came inside later and found this neat display of tools all laid out ready for the next group of gardeners.

Does one of these tools have your name on it? LINK to our volunteer-information page.
We love our service-learning "kids"!
Our intern Heather - a true delight!
Heather Bullock, one of the service-learning students from January 2015, went on to become an intern with us through the summer. She came for an over-night each week and participated in all aspects of growing and storing food. She was a wonderful addition to our "family" and we became very close. Here is a LINK to a beautiful essay she wrote about her experience with us entitled, "A Gift of Gratitude". Enjoy!