Sunshine Weekly Weeder Newsletter
23 March 2017
www.sunshinecommunitygardens.org
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Volunteers Needed - Porch Repairs
We are looking are volunteers with construction experience to assist with repairs to the trailer porch. If you are interested please contact Jeff Monks at garden@jeffmonks.com.
Volunteers Needed - Assist with Criss Cole's Transition Summer Program
We are looking for some Sunshine members to provide gardening experiences for students from the Criss Cole's Transition Summer program. It runs from July 5th to August 5th. There would be 1 or 2 students in the morning or afternoon. They would come up with specific job duties and provide job coaching as needed.
If you are interested, contact Janet Adams at jartdaht@gmail.com More Information on the Center
Gardening and Community Gardens by Valerie French
A wise gardener commented recently that we should not describe the process of providing spaces to garden as "plot rental". What Sunshine Community Gardens provides is not a 20x20' piece of private property, but the opportunity to commit to gardening. Sunshine gardeners are not 'renters', but stewards.
Tenancy is a legal relationship: the tenant has responsibilities to the landlord usually detailed in a long document with small print, mostly involving paying rent on time and leaving everything in working order at the end of the lease. Paying rent is a good and necessary start - but it isn't gardening.
Each plot in Sunshine Community Gardens is a garden - a piece of land intended for the cultivation of plants. Cultivating plants requires ongoing commitments: to till, to plant, to water, to weed, to maintain, to harvest, and to clear for the next season so it can all be done again. Gardening is something like a job: if you don't show up regularly, the tomatoes die, the flowers droop, and you don't get 'paid'. And eventually the garden stops being a garden.
In a community garden, failing to tend a garden has immediate and wider effects. For most of the year, a garden can be overrun by weeds within two weeks. Plants that are not tended become insect breeding grounds. In mid-summer, unharvested produce rots on the vine, and the rats come for it. The neighboring gardeners - and neighbors are rarely more than three feet away - battle weed-seeds, runners, insects, and vermin attracted or bred by the failing garden. They cannot address the source of the problem without trespassing on their neighbor gardener, violating both written rules and basic courtesy. For the same reason, what produce there is goes to waste instead of being harvested and donated to a food bank, or simply eaten. Those who have volunteered to help maintain the organization spend their time policing "messy plots" instead of helping the community as a whole, and become burned out and disillusioned. Gardens that "return to nature" cannot be left there: eventually, someone will have to uproot the weeds and re-create the garden.
And then there is the wider community. It includes the people waiting for a space to garden here; the Micah 6 Food Bank and its constituents; the summer farm stand patrons (now defunct); the many people who stood in line to buy our tomatoes and peppers this spring; our landlord, the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired; and the State of Texas that ultimately owns the land. To all these people, we represent that we use this space to garden, and we are all responsible to them as well.
These outside commitments - to other gardens, to the organization, to the wider community - make community gardening an act of stewardship: an ethical responsibility.
As Board secretary, I have seen and participated in closely-reasoned legal arguments referencing the Site Rules and Bylaws point-by-point, mathematical debates about the acceptable ratios of weeds to vegetables, and the fine procedural points of mailing and verifying receipt of "clean-it-up" notices. These distract from the ultimate point. If the natural law theory applies anywhere, it ought to be here, and that higher law is this:
Each plot is a garden. Therefore, each plot should be readily identifiable as a garden (i.e., space used for the cultivation of plants), and each plot needs at least one gardener (i.e., person actively engaged in cultivating plants).
That simple. The purpose of our organization is to provide opportunities to garden, to ensure that each garden has a gardener or gardeners that take care of it, and that the gardens as a whole are maintained and are an asset to the wider community.
Equally, every single gardener here has a duty to tend the land that has been entrusted to them as a garden, and to maintain it as an asset for themselves and for the wider community.
Please make certain your plot has a gardener this spring!
Free Soil Testing
The City of Austin is having its free Soil Test Kitchen on April 8th and 9th. They are testing for nutrients and metals in the soil. Community gardeners are encouraged to participate. More information.
East Austin Garden Fair
April 8th, 9 am to 2:00 pm
Parque Zaragoza Recreation Center, 2608 Gonzales St. in Austin.
There will be a variety of free gardening items and educational materials for adults, plus hands-on learning activities for children, at the East Austin Garden Fair. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo)
Build Strong Garden Teams - Interactive Training
April 25th, 6:00 to 8:00 pm & April 26th, 6:00 to 8:00 pm
Sustainable Food Center
2921 E. 17th St Bldg C
Austin, Tx 78722
Community and school gardens are a lot like miniature, volunteer-run organizations, and to thrive long term, they need leadership from strong, constructive teams.
However, with a variety of personalities and priorities in the mix, working together is not always easy!
At this interactive training, we will focus on strategies for successful collaboration. We'll learn strategies for making decisions as a group, as well as how to draw the best from diverse personalities and leadership styles to build strong teams.
We encourage 2 people from each garden to attend, but ask that participation from each garden is limited to 2 people, so that multiple gardens may attend. Thank you!
- Childcare available by request (request must be made up to 2 weeks before the event).
- Snacks will be provided.
Registration closes one business day before class. All attendees must register to attend.
Questions? Contact Sari Albornoz at sari@sustainablefoodcenter.org or 512-220-1087.
Community Garden - Leadership Training
May 16, 6:00 - 8:00 pm & May 17, 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Sustainable Food Center
2921 E. 17th St Bldg C
Austin, Tx 78722
Community gardens are vibrant shared spaces for growing fresh food, learning, and building friendships. Create or strengthen one in your neighborhood! In this interactive training, we will cover: locating community support and resources for your garden, accessing land and water, organizing a strong garden team, school-specific strategies and guidelines, garden management, and more. You'll hear from a community garden leader about his/her experiences starting and sustaining his/her garden.
If you are interested in creating a school garden, this training is also for you. The content of this training is similar to that of the School Garden Leadership Training.
- Trainings are for adults. Youth ages 12 and up may attend with close parent/guardian supervision during class.
- Childcare available by request (request must be made up to 2 weeks before the event).
- Registration closes one business day before class. All attendees must register to attend.
If you have questions contact Sari Albornoz at sari@sustainablefoodcenter.org or 512-220-1087
Weeder Content
Should you have any content to add to the Weeder email your articles or suggestions to pporter_scg@austin.rr.com.
Officer and Zone Coordinator Contacts - Sunshine Gardens
Officers
- President - Jeff Monks garden@jeffmonks.com
- Vice President - Jim Willmann jhwillmann@gmail.com
- Secretary - Polly Porter pporter_scg@austin.rr.com
- Treasurer - Caroline Limaye scgtreasurer1@gmail.com
- Director - Bill Cason wccason@gmail.com
- Director - Lori Dobbin loridobbin@gmail.com
- Director - Randy Thompson jartdaht@gmail.com
Email the board.
Zone Coordinators
- Zone 1, Martin Morales marmoral512@gmail.com
- Zone 2, Katy Davis katydavis@austin.rr.com
- Zone 3, Ludmila Voskov lvoskov@austin.rr.com
- Zone 4, Ila Falvey ila.falvey@gmail.com
- Zone 5, Mary Gifford mgifford@austin.rr.com
- Zone 6, Charlotte Jernigan charlotte@cybermesa.com
- Zone 7, Maria and Philip Wiley m.stroeva@gmail.com, philip9wiley@gmail.com
- Zone 8, Shannon Posern sposern@hotmail.com
- Zone 9, Kerry Howell casonhowell@gmail.com
- Zone 10, Christopher Schroder
christopher.s.schroder@gmail.com &
Karl Arcuri karl.w.arcuri@gmail.com
Other Personnel
- Weekly Weeder Newsletter - Polly Porter pporter_scg@austin.rr.com
- Plant Sale - Randy Thompson & Janet Adams jartdaht@gmailcom
- TSBVI Liaison & Volunteer Coordinator - Janet Adams jartdaht@gmailcom
- Plot Assignment - Kay McMurry scg.plots@gmail.com
- Compost Coordinator - Janet Adams jartdaht@gmail.com
- Education Committee - Shannon Posern shannonposern@gmail.com
- Carpentry & Repairs - Robert Jarry r.jarry@sbcglobal.net
- Water Leak Repairs - Steve Schulz sschulz784@aol.com
- Tools & Wheelbarrows - Bob Easter beaster1@austin.rr.com
- Kitchen Supplies - Anita Keese
anodekraft1@msn.com
(If supplies are needed for events, contact by email or at 512-773-2178) - Compost Tea - Jennifer Woertz jen@enjeneer.com
- Micah 6 - Dana Kuykendall kuykendall@austin.rr.com
- Micah 6 - Mary Gifford mgifford@austin.rr.com
- Website Coordinator - Sharon Rempert scgardenweb@gmail.com
Record Service Hours Online - Green Binder
