Help! Need help!

[leydaleon]

I am planning a "Gardening 1-2-3 & Get Together" in my community. It is a great community that has a piece of land divided in Garden Plots and are "rented" to the residents in our community. This is where I started gardening last year and plan to do again :D

This year I am working in the community staff and suggested to do this activity for the Community Pride Clubs and the residents that live in my area. Most of the ones that have asked me about the garden plots have moved recently.

I need ideas for this activity. Please help. What materials should I get? What should I do? I have brainstormed these ideas.... taking into account that we are doing the activity on March 7th.
- free seeds... which seeds?
- free compost
- raffle a Foot Square Garden book
- raffle garden tools (basic ones)
- Gardening 1-2-3 talk (need lots of help brainstorming this)

Any other ideas? I wonder if Patty has any information she can mail to me promoting her site :D other than giving them the website address.

Any help and ideas are appreciated....

In April we will be doing the Worm Composting bin activity too! :D

[plantoneonme]

If you have time to really advertise...I went to a garden tea party that was lots of fun. The ladies were asked to wear fancy garden hats and prizes were given out. Some of the volunteers showed up in victorian dress. There were areas where tea was offered and volunteers also made homemade cookies. You could have a bake sale if you like to raise a few funds.

As far as programs, I would do one on composting. It would include traditional composting such as in bins. Do you have areas set up where the gardeners can compost or do they have to have their own. I like the idea of having large composters set around different areas of the gardens that people can put in weeds etc and later harvest the compost. I would also do a program on how you can collect your own kitchen scraps and compost in place. I like to grind up some of my kitchen scraps in the food processor, dig a hole and dump them in. I seem to attract a lot of worms that way.

How about a program designed to teach the very beginner how to garden. I did a program with 3-5 year old kids that included very simple things for them to grow such as bush beans, bush cucumbers, sunflowers, radish and leaf lettuce. You may also introduce vegetables that many gardeners have not seen nor tried such as ground cherries, odd colored vegetables etc.

Is there an area, possible in the middle, where you can plant bee attracting flowers? You could do a program on how the bees are dying off and how important it is to have them around to pollinate the vegetables.

Hmmm, this is all I can think of off hand. Kim

[plantoneonme]

Thought of another one...how about a program on starting seedlings yourself for things like tomatoes? I have a very inexpensive light set up in my basement (under $20) and started my own tomatoes last year for the first time. It is really easy to do and I was able to get varieties I could not purchase in the stores. I have some information on my blog but could send more if you are interested. Kim

[shebear]

If you haven't seen this site then read through it. It has good ideas.

http://www.communitygarden.org/

Also I can't recommend the library enough. They and the city did an organic gardening seminar and our community garden passed out brochures. We've had 13 people interested since the middle of January. See if your library needs a program to draw people in. They usually have rooms and the resources to do presentations.

[gardengirl72]

I think seedling starting is a great idea. Then you could give away free seedlings to community members.

Also, think about irrigation. That is the first thing that ruins community gardens. Let us know what happens.

[leydaleon]

Have been busy... sorry for not updating...

We had the activity and it was a total success... about 50 people in attendance!

We raffled gardening stuff, including tools, book and other stuff. We gave for free brown bags with mixture of potting soil, compost, and perlite so people could start their seedlings.. We gave tons of seeds for free.
Also talked about square foot gardening and when to start seeds.

They really liked it... we had a lot of fun.

I already started my seedlings! they are coming beautifully!

I will post pics in my blog soon! http://frommomtomom.blogspot.com/