ISO Volunteers and Gardeners: SACG’s 2012 Growing Season Begins on March 31

Start dusting off your garden rakes and shovels. This Saturday, March 31, 2012, the Stoddart Avenue Community Garden will begin its fourth season of growing vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers. We're opening a little early this year because of the Easter holiday, but the weather has certainly been supportive. This is what we have planned:

• Spreading wood chips donated by the Tree King Services and Davey Tree along the paths, fence rows and between the Garden and alley. If you have them, please bring a garden rake, shovel, work gloves and wheelbarrow.




• Transplanting raspberry bushes;




• Thinning our strawberry patch;




• Tilling the garden soil. We have our beautiful tiller donated in 2010 by The Cougar Group, but Gardener Fred has his own tiller and we may have a till-off between Charlie and Fred (or any other macho guy who wants to operate large power tools).




• Weeding the front flower bed;




• Cutting turf and laying landscaping stones generously donated by GreenScapes Landscaping Company to protect the front flower bed from the ever-encroaching lawn;




• Laying landscaping stones donated by GreenScapes in pretty designs and to line the Garden paths;




• Flipping the compost bins;




• Picking up litter;




• Putting up the gates;




• Transplanting volunteer flowers (mostly daisies and bachelor buttons);




• Harvesting what is left of the crops we planted last Fall. (I saw spinach, carrots, leeks, colored greens, cilantro, etc.)




• Hoeing;




• Assigning plots;




• Miscellaneous clean-up.

Refreshments and pizza (courtesy of Bexley Pizza Plus) will be served. We also will reward our volunteers with free seeds, but we won't have our stache to distribute until April 4.

While scattered showers are predicted (as it always is), we are keeping our fingers crossed and saying a prayer that it holds off until late afternoon like it has the past three years. However, stay tuned to this site. If it is raining hard, we will re-convene on Saturday, April 14, 2012. Same time and same place.

This is our most important day of the year.

Be there or be square. Many hands make light work.