Through collaboration between the Interactive Resource Center and Transition Greensboro, the garden is a place to build community, exchange knowledge, and grow food year-round. Check this page often to see what’s going on and to find out ways that you can help.
The garden’s first harvest (June, 2010)
Are you interested in gardening? Do you enjoy working with people from all across the community? If so, join us on Tuesday and Friday mornings from 9:30 to 11am for good conversation and hard work. Our mornings tend to include watering, fertilizing, weeding, and harvesting. We are always looking for new people to get involved, so don’t hesitate to stop by! Have questions about work days? E-mail Kathe Latham at kblatham@aol.com.
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Hi everyone,
Spring is here and the daffodils, hyacinths and fruit trees are blooming at the IRC-TG Edible Community Garden. Last week several students from UNCG (including Tiffany, Susan and her friend Josh) planted lettuce and onions (donated by Spoma Jovanovic). This next week we’ll plant radishes, carrots and spinach. The guests are enjoying our hand made benches both inside and outside and there is a demand to make more in the near future.
We’ve also been painting rocks to add to the new memorial garden being prepared by IRC Board President Bob Newton, IRC guests and UNCG students. The rocks can be a memory rock of a person lost or creative design. Or you can bring a rock and paint your name and the back of it and set it in the garden. We’ll continue to paint rocks on Tuesdays for the next 2-3 weeks, and also will continue to prepare our beds forApril planting. A group of UNCG students are painting the Permaculture Principles on a series of 12 rocks. We‘re also painting rocks to place along side of what is planted so everyone will know what in the ground so far.
In addition another group of UNCG students from Spoma Jovanovic’s class will be preparing a graphic of the whole garden to scale pasted onto a trifold that will remain at the front of the dayroom. So anyone coming in to work will know what is already planted and what space may still be available for work. This is a great form of communication for everyone entering the IRC.
The garden days work hours continue to be Tuesdays and Fridays. The hours will now be the same on both days- from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, so you can just show up if you want to help out…or e-mail me to let me know you‘re coming.
Our two big Saturday workdays in April will by on Saturday, April 20 and Saturday April 27th, from 9-2:00 pm. Please let me know if you will be joining us so we can organize enough projects to accommodate everyone.
We’ll also working more closely with IRC Volunteer Coordinator Tiffany Dumas to create a stronger buddy system between IRC guests and students and others joining us to work in the garden. So when you come to the garden be thinking of developing a relationship with at least one guest that will encourage them to become more engaged in the garden working in the fresh air while planting, weeding and watering and sharing stories. What’s not to like!
If you have any concerns or questions please contact me through e-mail at kblatham@aol.com. IRC guest David Merrit has become a co-coordinator of the project so you can also check with him about anything related to the garden. We will meet every Thursday at 11:00 am with Tiffany Dumas, so if you’d like to join us for planning you are also welcome.
In Community,
Kathe Latham
Co-coordinatory
IRC-TG Edible Community Garden
kblatham@aol.com
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Hi everyone,
This past weekend we made huge progress in preparing another section of the garden for Spring planting near the railroad tracks. This section will include a memorial garden with a small patio with benches (we’ve already made) surrounding it. Art and other objects in memory of guests who’ve died will be placed in the garden along with a few more fruit trees, herbs, sunflowers and eventually a pergola for shade.
Students from UNCG, and many more guests dug up huge roots, chopped down a few old bushes, and began to level out the area in preparation for a delivery of mulch that will lay the foundation for our Spring planting projects. We also shared stories and talked about life while taking a break on our newly made garden benches. This week we’ll continue with the clearing and preparation of the memorial garden which also includes cutting down some vines along the front wall of the parking lot in preparation for a mural on the front wall.
ON Tuesday, we’ll begin some “garden art” projects with IRC volunteer Carolyn Owens. This Tuesday we’ll paint rocks that will become markers for what we plant, so that when people walk by they will know the names of what we’ve planted. We’ll also begin to create labels that will be placed along side planting areas that will explain care requirements for each plant. And some guests will continue to have the option of painting a small rock or brick in memory of lost friends.
Carolyn suggested another “rock”ing idea which is that if you work in the garden and want to leave a piece of yourself behind, bring along a rock and we’ll have some paint for you to paint your name on the back of the rock and place it in the garden. Any other ideas you may have for garden art are most welcome. Carolyn will also offer up a couple more of her own.
This month in preparation for Spring planting we’ll be planting seedlings inside. Please save and bring along any empty small containers you may have such as small milk cartons etc. and any seeds you may have to donate. We can also use some more coffee grounds for our compost bin.
Donations big and small are always welcome! We’ll be organizing a Spring fundraiser soon to prepare for our big planting days. For now you can send a check (with the IRC-TG Garden in the memo line) to the:
IRC (Interactive Resource Center)
407 E. Washington Street
Greensboro, N.C. 27420
Any other ideas or contributions you may have are more than welcome. Just shoot me an e-mail or stop by. My hours at the IRC will continue to be Tuesday from 10:00-2:00 and Fridays from 11:00-2:00.
In Community,
Kathe Latham, PhD
IRC-TG Edible Community Garden
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Garden Report from Kath Latham of Transition Greensboro- January 2013
The month of January has been bursting with activity in the garden at the Interactive Resource Center. On January 13 we had a most amazing group of students from Elon University who were taking a class on “Happiness” with Dr. Spoma Jovanovic. We did seem to have a happy time building benches with the help of Lewis Pitts, Charlie Fariss and Sander Mattson and working outside with permaculture educators Charlie Headington and Aubrey Cupit. Spoma and other students cooked a delicious lunch that we shared while celebrating IRC-TG leadership team member and IRC guest David Merrit.
Thanks to everyone who made donations at our chili cook off at the home of Spoma Jovanovic and Lewis Pitts on January 12th. Everyone was a winner that night and we heard some exciting plans by Charlie Headington for an Urban Forest project within the city.
On January 21st in honor of MLK day we had another energetic group of students from UNCG and one from High Point University who sheet mulched a huge area of no-till garden space with local permaculture teachers Jenny Kimmel and Chandra Metheny. We cleared a difficult area of thorny brush in preparation for another whole outdoor garden space that will eventually include a trellis and shade trees. We were also joined by Joe Frey of the Office of Leadership and Service Learning who got his hands in the dirt and did some heavy lifting himself.
On Saturday, February 2 we had 50 students from Dudley High School along with 10 students from UNCG as well as our local team building more benches, creating some more no-till organic garden space, and staining and painting all the benches with the IRC logo front and center. Thanks again to everyone who helped out!! Truly an example of creative community.
Students from UNCG will continue to participate in service learning projects throughout the semester. We will be there every Tuesday from 10:00-1:00 so please join us any time. We can also be available on Friday afternoons by appointment, so please contact Kathe Latham at kblatham@aol.com or TransitionGreensboro@gmail.com or check out our Facebook page.
December 10, 2012: New Fundraiser & exciting upcoming projects!
David, Kathe and Anya have been hard at work planning future projects and looking at the long-term sustainability of the garden. We also have new volunteers from Guilford College working with us to maintain the garden and plan our next fundraiser. Speaking of, our 2nd fundraiser, a chili cook-off, will take place on January 10th, 2013 at 7pm. Keep an eye out for more details!
We are also hosting several large work days in January, check out the schedule below!
- January 12: 10am-2pm roughly 30 Elon University students as well as local carpenters will begin the bench-making workshops. The benches will provide rest areas in the garden, memorial garden, and in the outside rest area at the end of the front parking lot.
- January 21: 9am-noon roughly 10 UNCG students will work in the garden as part of MLK Day and our MLK Week of Service.
- February 2: 10am-3pm roughly 50 Dudley High School students will wrap up the bench-making workshops of January and help us label all of our wonderful plants. The garden signs will include information about each plant as well as proper watering and harvesting techniques.
November 10, 2012: Four new trees + Beyond
Thank you to Home Depot on Brassfield for donating new fruit trees and bales of pine needles! Thank you to Lowe’s on Battleground for donating two fruit trees, now our plum trees will pollinate! We are up to two pear, plum and fig trees, as well as one apricot. The garden is expanding and we look forward to expanding into 2013!
We also planted flowers and expanded the sheet mulching alongside the hill to prepare the land for future planting. We are so very grateful to all of our wonderful, hard-working volunteers from the community-at-large, NC A & T, and UNCG!
October 16, 2012: Work day date CHANGE and look at the produce grow…
Hi everyone! A quick update on our next garden work day; the tree planting and sheet mulching we planned for October 27th has been moved to November 10th! We hope to see you all then!
The beets, kale, lettuce, and spinach are all growing beautifully!
September 27, 2012: THANK YOU, DoSomething.org!
Thank you again to Do Something for the Do Something Seed Grant! We are very excited that the grant arrived just before our 2nd fall work day!
If you’re interested in volunteering in the garden, come on down for our work day on Sunday, September 30 from 12:30 to 4pm! We will be planting collards and blueberries, sheet mulching, as well as building a compost bin. We would love to have you join us.
September 27, 2012: The seeds are sprouting!
The beet, kale, spinach and lettuce seeds that Anya and Elizabeth planted two weeks ago are sprouting!
September 10, 2012: Thank you to DoSomething.org for the Do Something Seed Grant!!!
DoSomething.org, a national not-for-profit, is all about helping young people 25 and under get involved and help initiate change within their communities. Anya Piotrowski, the NC Campus Compact AmeriCorps*VISTA working at UNCG and the IRC, applied for the Do Something Seed Grant over the summer. This week Anya found out that we are a winner.
The DoSomething.org Do Something Seed Grant is a $500 grant that will go toward the IRC-TG Communtiy Garden to purchase fruit trees, berry plants, and other supplies needed for the garden! So THANK YOU, DoSomething.org for choosing our community garden!
Mark your Calendars:
- September 30, Westminster Presbyterian volunteers will join us for their “One Great Day” event; all are welcome!
- November 10, Tree Planting and Spring bed preparation (sheet mulching)
August 25, 2012: Fall Planting, Round 1
Thank you to everyone who was able to join us on Saturday for our first round of fall planting. There were many volunteers from the community at-large, Transition Greensboro, guests of the IRC, and students from UNCG, A & T, and Guilford College. We accomplished many things, including: weeding, sheet mulching, and collard planting. Everyone worked very hard to get a great new strip of land prepared for blueberries, which we will plant next month!
We would also like to thank Bruegger’s on Battleground for donating bagels to our hard-working volunteers! We all appreciated having a snack to keep us going, so thank you!
August 23, 2012: THANK YOU to our generous donors!
We are all very thankful for all of you who were able to make it to the fundraiser at Dr. Charlie Headington’s house on Thursday. Thanks to your generous support we were able to raise enough to get our fall planting off the ground! A special thank you to Dr. Charlie Headington for not only hosting our fundraiser, but for a great tour of his permaculture garden! His garden is a perfect example of all we can do in an urban environment…and without a tiller.
August 7, 2012: Our largest harvest to date!
We had our largest harvest to date on August 7. We harvest giant radishes, a few carrots, two eggplants, okra, and even a little lettuce that popped up.
It all looks so fresh and delicious.
July 2012: We have zucchini!
Our zucchini is finally starting to grow.
June 2012: Look at that produce!
Our first tomato turning RED
Our first Okra harvest!
April 28, 2012: Our first large planting day of the year!
Thanks to the hard-working volunteers, we were able to plant peppers, tomatoes, okra, lima and pole beans, flowers, herbs, pear trees, a fig tree, and many more!
