SACG’s Earth Day Celebration for 2019

The Stoddart Avenue Community Garden celebrated another Earth Day on Saturday with the planting of another tree:  this year a honeycrisp apple tree to go with our McIntosh, Jonathon and Granny Smith. Our Stoddart/East Main corner is looking cheery with bulbs that I planted in December which were donated by Straders Garden Centers and distributed at the December GCGC holiday party meeting at the Conservatory.  

I picked up our supplies from Keep Columbus Beautiful and Green Columbus on Friday, including lots of mulch and top soil donated by Ohio Mulch (just before it started to pour rain with just the community garden guru from Olde Town East’s community garden to help me load).   We also picked up some litter (but not as much as last week, particularly because a large group of young people were out picking up litter this Saturday along East Main Street).  I did not, however, take a group photo this week.  Our dedicated volunteers and gardeners accomplished a lot and received goodies, including vouchers for free ice cream from Jeni's:

New gardener Michael moved mountains by shoveling wood chips away from the southern fence.  Anyone who wants some for their own yards or gardens are free to help themselves, because I doubt that we will need many more.   He also helped me to straighten one of the platform raised beds.  This time, we moved it completely away, straightened out the stone platforms and then returned it and tried to screw in 12-inch screws to keep it vertical (instead of leaning at a 30 degree angle like it was last week). I wore him out, so – after helping to plant the apple tree -  he went home to mow his own lawn and came back with his lovely Australian shepherd, Duke.

John picked up more litter, and dug some holes for us for the apple tree and for the southern fence posts, picked up some litter, and tried to paint the bare fence wood (with the paint left in the shed that did not over winter well). Then, he got his own plot cleaned out and planted some turnips, cabbage, and lettuce.  He also disposed of our rotting stakes and some giant sunflower stalks from last year.


Ethan raked away the dead grass in front of the sign and cultivated the soil so that I could plant grass seeds.  Curses that it may not rain again the rest of the week.  Sigh.  Just my luck.  He also helped to move the raised bed so that we could straighten it out, help plant and back fill the apple tree.


Any fixed the strawberry patch that had been damaged by the wood chip delivery truck.  She dug up the crushed strawberry plants, spread some of the donated top soil and come of our compost and transplanted and watered in the strawberry plants.   She also pruned some of our roses and started to clean out flower beds.

Whitney – Michael’s better half – came to transport compost into some of the plots whose gardeners did not use enough of it (IMHO) last year.  She also sanded the shed’s peeling rain barrel and painted it.  She then helped to clean out the flower beds.



Ellen also helped to distribute compost and then refilled the platform raised beds with the soil we removed last week and then topped it off with new potting soil I picked up at Lowe’s on Friday. She also helped to clean out flower beds and helped to plant lettuce, onion and cabbage in the neighbor bed along our alley where anyone can help themselves.  She and Whitney also preserved a large number of volunteer black raspberry bush seedlings in the raised bed.  I will transplant some of them next week into bare spots along our exterior fence.  However, the rest of them are free to any other community garden and for a donation (or some time volunteering) to any individual gardeners would like to start their own yummy and nutritious raspberry patch.

Sabrina and her two boys came and sorted our dwindling supply of tomato and trellis stakes.  The boys also watered in the new apple trees and carried water for me to water in transplanted daisies and bachelor buttons.  She also helped to transplant cabbage, onion and lettuce seedlings in the neighbor bed and cleaned out a flower bed.

I helped Michael with the raised bed, cleaned out flower beds, transplanted volunteer daisies and bachelor buttons into more appropriate places, brought refreshments to keep everyone sugar up, assembled supplies and tried to keep everyone busy.  After they left, I tended my own plot for a bit, picked up mulch for my own home, planted a ton of perennial flowers that I picked up from DeMonye’s perennial sale on Friday, and then returned to plant some flowers, and then spinach, Chinese, red and white cabbage, Italian, curly and red kale, lettuce, brussells sprouts, potatoes, broccoli, onions, and transplant a lot of garlic.   I had already planted my snow peas a few days earlier.

Sadly, some misguided fool dropped off a dozen or so wood pallets at the Garden on Thursday without first asking me.  Two of our compost bins are made from such pallets.  Granted, they are probably due to be replaced soon, but I do not have the energy or volunteers to do it this year and would only need 6 pallets, not 12.  They stacked them neatly on our lawn, but it will kill the grass in short order, creating more work for me.   Pastor Brown did not want them, but found a volunteer to haul them away.  However, when that volunteer arrived, he could not fit them on his overflowing trailer.  Although he said he would return later in the day, he did not and they were still there when I left around 7:30.   I emailed GCGC members and posted on a local gardening site advertising their free availability to anyone wanting to build their own compost bin.  Two of my Board members also volunteered to dispose of a few of them.  So, hopefully, they will be gone when I return . . . . . .   this was not a problem that I identified this week.  Perhaps coincidentally, Cathy later photographed a mounted police officer patrolling the Garden.  Hilarious.


We still have 4 plots available for new gardeners.  One of our former gardeners, Charlie, stopped by on Wednesday to rejoin us after a few years of trying to have his own garden at his new home.  He took his original plot from 2010.   


Today, I get to return the tools that we borrowed from Keep Columbus Beautiful and the Tool Library and pick up new paint for our fence.