Any Gardeners Here?

Discussion in 'New Roundtable' started by KyleK, Apr 20, 2014.

  1. KyleK

    KyleK Who, me? Staff Member

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    I've always enjoyed growing my own vegetables. Last fall, a friend approached me about setting up a community garden. We found some unused land that was basically a junk yard and got the owner to agree to let us use it long term for a community garden in exchange for cleaning it up and maintaining it. We have been moving tons of concrete off of the site for 8 months and doing lots of tractor/dozer work. We put our first vegetables in last fall. We grew mostly turnips, mustards, collards, etc. Unfortunately, a huge amount of the yield went unused. This wasn't totally unexpected as it will take some time to get the word out.

    So, for the last few weekends, we have been hard at it getting the spring garden in. Still have a long way to go, but so far we've put in about 400' of peanuts, 100 feet of green beans, 75' of peas, 75 feet of cucumbers, 150' of green onions, 60' of cantaloupe, 150' of yellow squash, 75' of zucchini squash, 40 tomato plants and 200' of potatoes.

    Still to get in the ground, 3 colors of bell peppers, tons of corn, jalapeno peppers, cayenne peppers, watermelons, beets, carrots, rutabagas, radishes, collards, butter beans, mustards and mirlitons.

    We have a total of 1 1/2 acres, so we will have a lot of food to give away. Basically anyone who wants or needs fresh vegetables can come get them. Hopefully, with the addition of so many other vegetables and a lot more publicity, we will have a lot more people take advantage of it. Our hope is to also get volunteers to come pick vegetables to deliver to elderly that can't get out and pick for themselves.

    This is a huge step up for me as far as scale. It will be 4 of us taking care of the 1 1/2 acres. Hopefully all goes well and we can feed a lot of people.

    Any gardeners here? If so, what do you grow? How big do you go?

    Also, have any of you been involved in this type of community garden? If so, what were your biggest successes/challenges?
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2014
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  2. LSUTiga

    LSUTiga TF Pubic Relations

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    That's not a garden, that's a farm.


    We have a total of 1 1/2 acres, so we will have a lot of food to give away. Basically anyone who wants or needs fresh vegetables can come get them. Hopefully, with the addition of so many other vegetables and a lot more publicity, we will have a lot more people take advantage of it. Our hope is to also get volunteers to come pick vegetables to pick and deliver to elderly that can't get out and pick for themselves.



    I would say the challenges will be people picking but not contributing. AKA, Freeloaders. Or maybe you're doing it for "free". Or maybe to meet MILF's you sneaky bastard.



    1 Messican > 4 white boyz
     
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  3. KyleK

    KyleK Who, me? Staff Member

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    Yeah, we are giving it away. Our biggest problem in the fall was getting people to come pick the damn greens. They would take em if you picked em, but were too freakin lazy to come get them.

    We had one article in the local paper last year that helped, but this time we are really pushing for more media coverage and we are planning to get the word out more on social media as well. There's just a helluva lot of people here who eat like shit. We are hoping maybe some will eat some healthier food if it is available to them.

    Yeah, I deliver to the MILFs :)
     
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  4. LSUTiga

    LSUTiga TF Pubic Relations

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    Here is my garden. I cut back a lot. Here is one part of my garden (pic from last year).

    [​IMG]
     
  5. GregLSU

    GregLSU LSUFANS.com

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    Maybe get some of your fellow church go'ers or other friends/family to help to pick then donate some of the excess to a few food shelters or homeless shelters... those people can always use fresh vegetables. Might help out so some of that doesn't go to waste.
     
  6. shane0911

    shane0911 Helping lost idiots find their village

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    I would have to agree

    Dude you have it bad. Figuring out a way to chase tail from a free garden, boy you are kinkier than a cheap garden hose.

    This is absolutely true. Go find you a few of these, tell them the deal, throw em a $20 and they will have that thing feeding half the town. Just make sure they don't start growing hippie lettuce.


    I have tried a couple years now to get a small garden growing in the back yard. The Tomato plants will turn into trees but never flower for some reason, or they will flower but never turn into fruit, the heat I guess.

    I had some cucumbers that started to take off but then just turned yellow and wilted and I just gave up on them. They were on the side of the house and I just quit checking them. I looked one day and the grass had grown about knee high because i never mow on the side. Well when I did I figured out that my cucumber plants had made a miraculous recovery, just had to ruin about all of them to get to em because of the damn grass.

    I have done pretty good with yellow squash however this year I broke the "old grandpa rule" and I planted prior to Good Friday and wouldn't you know it we had a frost last week and I think it got most of em. I will replant.

    Tried green beans and failed miserably, do pretty well with Bell Peppers, Never had any success with melons of any type unless they are attached to a woman. Same with strawberries. I have everything I mentioned above in the ground plus banana peppers and japs.
     
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  7. KyleK

    KyleK Who, me? Staff Member

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    Nothing like fresh home grown tomatoes.

    Here is a pic from a few weeks ago. As of now, the green you see to the right of the rows is gone and rows are there. It extends about 200 feet to the right.

    [​IMG]
     
  8. KyleK

    KyleK Who, me? Staff Member

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    Coincidentally, it is right next to my church. We are hoping to get them involved. Another idea that has been floated is actually using some of it to prepare meals for those who need them. Hopefully some people at the church will do that.

    Trying to get the men's group at the church to donate an electric fence to go around it. Deer were getting in there last fall and eating all of the lettuce that we planted.

    Most of the veggies we planted this time have a much greater shelf life that greens. Therefore, the food bank here will get a lot of stuff.
     
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  9. mobius481

    mobius481 Registered Member

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    Very cool. I hope to be able to do this one day.
     
  10. Bengal B

    Bengal B Founding Member

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    Get in touch with a loca judge. Maybe he will sentence some lawbreakers to do their community service by working in your garden
     
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