Summer's Second Work Party!

Hello Gardeners!

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We think it's high time for another...

Smith Community Garden Work Party!

When
Sat, Jun 21, 2pm – 5pm
Where
Fort Hill site (see map)
Description
Please come join us for another round of bed-mak ing and planting. We'll have snacks, music, and refreshments. Please bring any tools you can rustle up and a water bottle! Join us for our after-party potluck as well! RSVP smithgarden@gmail.com

After-Party Potluck
When
Sat, Jun 21, 5pm – 7pm
Description
A hard-working gardener deserves a well-made potluck meal- please bring a dish to share: please post your dish with an RSVP as a comment so we don't get 3 casseroles. Refreshments will be provided. Potluck will take place at Mariah Wyman and friends' apartment nearby.



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DIRECTIONS to Garden:
Directions from Smith Campus (10-15 minute walk):

Take Elm/Main St/Rte. 9 towards downtown Northampton. At the traffic light by the Academy of Music, turn right onto South St/Rte. 10 S. Follow South St. through one set of lights and take your second left after the lights, Lyman Road. The entrance to Fort Hill is a one-way driveway on your left at the far end of Lyman Road. Smith Community Garden is next to TRACES, the old Victorian building.


Hope to see you there!

-the garden

Post-Work Party Update

A hot, humid day at the garden Site. Friends arrived on the site to see a small rabbit hopping from the scene. Later we found a small patch of trampled wheat in our box. I think we have a new mascot.



Raised bed #4, aka "The Beast" was finally completed. The challenges?
- assembling one side with two rows of planks, and keeping the boards from buckling
- driving nails into the (dense) white pine and (slightly warped) recycled wood
The benefits? A lovely, sustainably built raised bed, now home to several happy spinach, lettuce, and tomato plants.



The Beast, and his slightly milder, smaller brother were filled in with gravel and sand (to improve drainage), and then lavished with soil (kindly provided by Bob Dombkowski, Supervisor of Grounds) and Smith's specialty compost. Thanks also to Gaby Immerman of the Botanic Garden for lending us several shovels, trowels, and buckets to equip our workers. Several seedlings (kindly donated by the Northfield Mount Hermon school program and friend, Laura Fisher) were transplanted into rows, watered and labelled.



Also thanks to Frank Perman, Supervisor of Plumbing and Heating, for providing the Garden with H2O! Our thirsty plants appreciated a good dousing after a hot day. (And so did we).

Spring onions, cherokee purple and cherry bomb tomatoes, sweet basil, peppers, nasturtiums, spinach and several varieties of lettuce are formally part of the Smith Garden Family, joining a thriving crop of Red Fife wheat and just-sprouting dill, parsley, poppies, nasturtiums, and flax.



The work party was finished off with a celebratory, and much-needed trip to Herrell's ice cream. Join us next time for more planting, building, sweating at the Site.

Summer Work Party Saturday, June 7th

Come one, come all! Smith's up-and-coming community garden is having the summer's first work party this saturday, June 7th from 12 to 3pm at the Fort Hil site.

Join us for the nice weather, for yummy snacks and refreshments, and a trip to Herrell's after the day's work.

Tell your friends, bring a shovel or hoe if you've got one. We'll be finishing building our fourth raised bed, adding soil, planting (transplants and seeds!), and beautifying the space a bit.

Hope to see you there- please RSVP if you can make it.