Gardening and Community

Community gardening plots by Goodwill in Outagamie County


A raised bed stringed off in the "square-foot garden" style

One of the gardens featured on the Outagamie Master Gardeners Garden Walk was a garden at the Goodwill Industries Menasha . The purpose of their garden as stated on the linked site is :

"Community Garden Partnership provides opportunities for diverse groups
to share their experiences and knowledge with other gardeners
at a variety of community locations while also promoting such
things as self-sufficiency, environmental stewardship, creation
of healthy civic space, and donations to food banks."

When I visited the Community Garden the docent from the Master Gardeners organization quoted that phrase for me pretty much verbatim. He intended to be my guide through the garden. I really didn't need a guide to help me keep my feet off the tomatillos and didn't want to get into my own back story, so I told him my son and I would be fine on our own.

It was probably rude. My son told me I was and probably hurt his feelings. He probably had had very few visitors all day and wanted to do his part to contribute. We did sit down at the picnic table when we were done and chat up him and his fellow docent, because then, I did have some questions.

The garden is roped off into 10' x 10' squares. In the small space the entire plot envelopes, the soil type changes radically on a sharp diagonal line from a sandy loam to clay. It is in the shadow of a major highway and lots of developed and black-topped areas. I would assume some topsoil may have been hauled in for lawn at some point accounting for this major demarcation.

To further cut down on growing space there are tiny foot paths around the raised beds in any gardener's plot. It appears one Gardener took his entire plot and planted 10' rows of sweet potatoes. Then, in an act of gardening outside the lines, planted hills of corn just outside his stringed partition.

The plot with the biggest tomatoes, and best looking everything else was using commercial synthetic fertilizers and had recently dusted his cucumbers (or more likely zucchini) with Sevin (which is not an organic pesticide, and while it is decidedly a chemical that can get the job done, is not a favorite of mine).

There were no cabbage, no greens (other than what appeared to be a self-seeded Asian mustard from a previous year's community garden), no potatoes, no chard, no beets, no other Asian veggies, no peas, no carrots, no radishes, and no herbs.

There was corn, planted outside the lines and corn planted in the square-foot garden.

There were tomatoes, although they either looked pretty rough and so tiny that with our weather time for fruiting will be doubtful; or looked like ones bought potted and ready to bloom and planted last week.

There were beans. There was one gardener who erected hooped wire fencing over his beds for some sort of vertical gardening.

There were lots of weeds and little well-worked soil. There were few labels other than "yellow beans" or "tomato".

In other words, the gardens provided little information and looked a bit rough.

In addition to providing food for gardeners and food pantries, the gardens are supposed to be a way to share knowledge from newbies from experienced gardeners and tips on different methods from peer to peer.

I didn't see a lot of anything I would want to try.

The raised beds weren't really "raised". More, they were just sort of "boxed". The purpose of a raised bed is to provide a fluffy, improved soil bed and/or bring up the level of a bed to allow less enabled gardeners better access and ergonomic position while gardening. It seems the beds there missed all that.

I also had the obvious misconception that the gardens would be touting environmentally sustainable practices. There was no composting being done or being used. There was no community compost pile.

When I spoke to the docents, they told me that when the community garden idea was put together the organizers felt they could not put any limitations on organic versus synthetic. I totally get that, but I was hoping minimally for some sustainable methods.

Another aspect that bothered me, in regards to the teaching aspect was lack of identification of varietal types. Personally, I feel this is the biggest challenge to gardeners. In zone 4, I feel we are often just lumped in with the greater Midwest which is predominantly zone 5-7 and sent transplants that do well in the region versus our local area.

When I expressed my concern over the loss of varietal information for plants that will reliably do well here, the elder docent (who was a Master Gardener) replied, "Generally, regardless how well any particular vegetable does a gardener will get enough produce overall to make the garden worthwhile."

This response floored me. If early settlers to Wisconsin in any area had zero germination for their 'Jubilee' sweetcorn, as I did this year, they couldn't run out to the seed store and reliable buy more seed the next year. If their potato crop developed late blight, there was starvation.

This is a little like the "Let them eat cake attitude" which has gotten politicians the world over in hot water or worse. It is a bit like the attitude prevalent after Katrina. "They" were warned, why didn't "they" leave. It was the poorer people with no big SUVs, credit cards, and more importantly cash nor "place to leave to" that stayed behind in New Orleans. Policy makers not of that socio-economic group didn't understand why "they" would stay.

Fortunately, I can run out the next spring and buy some other sweet corn seed, but if I wanted to eat local and had planted only 'Jubilee', I wouldn't be eating sweetcorn this year. By the way, although it is not a crop yet, I did get great germination from sweetcorn 'Early Sunglow, even with our cold, wet spring.

I will go back and check out this community garden sometime late July, and other community gardens in the Fox Valley because gardening is a learning and growing experience.

The Family Garden and Potager Update

Well, over in the family garden we had some frost. It nailed the tomatillos we had planted there. I'm pretty sure they are goners, but we'll wait and see as we do have some space. It also nipped the very top leaves of the basil, not a big deal. We have more basil, but only one tomatillo plant growing in the potager.

The asparagus bed is sending up its first tiny purple spears. That is pretty exciting. Where I see top growth, I know the roots are making themselves at home as well.

The 'Reliance' seedless table grapes are opening leaf buds. Pretty exciting to see growth on something that is just twisty dry sticks!

And my brother scared up the first rat snake, of what my sister-in-law informs me is an infestation, but so far I have not seen. Sister-in-law says the snake was four feet long and a bit bigger in diameter than a garden hose. That's a good sized snake! I hope it works on the rodent problem of which I have seen more than a bit of evidence.

The weeds are starting to come, mostly grassy weeds, as are the potatoes! The radishes are up, The 'Early Sunglow' sweetcorn has sprouted. This is a type that does well in cooler wetter ground. It looks like a good germination level. So far, with its reported early ripening it looks like the easy winner for our future plantings as well.

We planted the the blueberries in an area that will be enclosed from rodents and birds. We amended the bed with donkey dung, compost, shredded paper, and peat moss. My two-year-old nephews found the spreading of the bags of confetti-like paper definitely the garden chore they have excelled at to-date.

On each edge of what will be an enclosed area for the blueberries and hazelnuts, we laid down black landscape fabric. Sister-in-law cut holes into it and planted tomatoes. The plan is to use the blueberry caging to tie up our tomatoes, saving us the effort and expense of caging them.

In another 500 square foot area that has been covered by black landscape fabric, we planted the first of our peppers: sweet red 'Carmen', jalapeno, and some Cayenne.

Finally, the sweet potato 'Georgia Jet' slips arrived from Jung's. They looked wilted and dead on arrival. I got home at 8 P.M. last evening to be greeted by these dead things standing upright in a bowl of water. My son had gotten the mail and was intrigued by the the small box labeled 'Georgia Jet.' Not sure what he thought they were, he did do the right thing, I believe, by giving them plant CPR. I, in turn, potted them in 3" x 3" x 6" deep pots of compost and watered them and set them on my heat mat. Knowing they like completely warm soil, a week in nice, fluffy compost on my heat mats and under the lights will be like old home week, compared to the cool nights and indifferent daytime temps we have been blessed with here in central Wisconsin.

On the fruit tree scene in my potager, the apricot 'Moorpark' has several half a dime size apricots. I did not hand pollinate this year. The tree was loaded with buds, but I would guess at this time less than a quarter were polinated. That will probably save me thinning fruit. My 'Seckl' pear is boasting handfuls of rust-colored pre-pears at this point, all the petals having dropped last week. My 'Honeycrisp' is in full bloom, or I should say 1/3 bloom; as it appears that cold snap got some of my buds on the north side where it was not protected as it was on the south side by my massive 'Diablo' ninebark. When 75% of its petals have dropped I will spray both it and the pear with Malathion to deter coddling moth. There is literature out there stating a dormant oil in the winter and two well-timed application of Malathion might be a preferred method of preventing the pests most apt to get my apples.

Today in the Potager and the Family Garden

Lettuce planted on April 22.


Strawberry 'Honeyoye transplanted last September.


Sugar Snap Peas planted in April.

The potager is coming along. The rain on Monday afternoon really helped the germination percentage. The lettuce in the cold frame, germinated under lights two weeks after the lettuce direct-seeded in the garden, pricked out, and transplanted is exponentially larger than the direct-seeded.

The peas in cells in the cold frame have yet to germinate. Those planted in our cold wet April look nice. My experiment this year is to grow them on my grape trellis and into my privet instead of using pea sticks.

At the family garden I planted three blocks of sweetcorn and a 4' square of radishes, 'French Breakfast'. I choose three different varieties of sweetcorn: 'Jubilee,' 'Country Gentleman,' and Early Sunglow'.

The 'Early Sunglow is a very early 62-day hybrid. I will plant more of 'Early Sunglow' in two to three weeks from now to ensure sweetcorn throughout the summer.

With all the GMO varieties of sweetcorn and extra sugar gene-spliced varieties, we wanted to keep it simple, going with heirloom or old-fashioned F1 hybrids. 'Country Gentleman' is an heirloom non-hybrid variety which will take 92-days to ripen. I'm a little worried about that one. If the 'Country Gentleman' actually sprouted by May 14, that puts the earliest harvest at August 15, and probably much later than that.

They usually start counting from the time the seed sprouts. We are supposed to have rain tonight, possibly tomorrow, and temperatures in the 70s-80s on Wednesday and Thursday. Typically, the ground should be 55 degrees to 75 degrees to ensure good germination for sweetcorn. We have had like four days of temperatures in the 60s this year. I can't imagine the soil temperature is above 55 degrees yet today, but possibly it will be by the time it rains all day tomorrow. Corn seed will rot rather than germinate if the soil is too cool or wet. The 'Early Sunglow' is specifically grown in areas where cool temperature are considered normal.

'Jubilee' is a F1 hybrid and a 87-day variety.

I planted each variety in short three row blocks, with each row about two feet from the next, because of what I assume will be vastly different tasseling/pollination times. As corn is typically pollinated by wind-borne pollen, and kernels will not form unless the silk leading to that kernel receives pollen. It is counter productive to pollination to plant in one long row.

We are going to go pesticide- and herbicide-free on our sweetcorn. We will be planting a legume to fix nitrogen in the soil around our sweetcorn and a squash to provide a ground cover to prevent weeds. This is a traditional Native American method of growing sweetcorn. They would plant the three species in each hill and then revisit their garden in thelate summer to harvest.

We intend to layer green compost materials, which are higher in nitrogen, around our sweetcorn as a mulch. Sweetcorn is a heavy nitrogen feeder. I am not sure we will be able to go chemical fertilizer-free, but we will make the attempt and I will watch for how the plants look and whether they show signs of nutrient deficiencies like yellowing, pale color, or a purple tinge to lower leaves.