One Year Ago Today

We broke ground on Campbell Community Garden one year ago today! After many months of planing, fundraising, and permitting, volunteers from Landscape East and West arrived at the Campbell School Grounds on Saturday April 28, 2012, to install water lines into the garden site.


Campbell Community Garden, April 28, 2012
First day of construction; waterlines and hose bibs installed,
 professional labor and materials donated by Landscape East & West. 


Today the garden is thriving! To date we have donated 978 pounds of food grown in the garden; novice gardeners have successfully grown and harvested veggies to feed their families; we have learned a lot from tips shared by experienced gardeners, learned from our mistakes, and made many new friends.

Campbell Community Garden, April 28, 2013
Most gardens have early spring crops started, and one gardener has taken the plunge
and planted warm weather crops including tomatoes.

The 2013 growing season is off to an awesome start. Many gardeners are returning for a second year, and the vacated gardens have all been filled. We have already harvested 117 pounds of veggies (mostly greens and herbs) to donate and have set a donation goal of 2,000 pounds to be donated by the end of the year. We have started in on building a bed for rhubarb, next we will work on our blueberry patch and build a shed.

Thank you to all of the volunteers and sponsors who helped us get to this one year milestone!

Supporting the Good Bugs

The Campbell Community Garden is tended using organic, natural gardening methods. This year we are introducing beneficial insects and incorporating more flowers into our gardens to support those good bugs while they fight the bad bugs.

The insects we plan to introduce include:

Atheta coriaria (Rove Beetle, attacks soil dwelling insects)

Stratiolaelaps scimitus (soil dwelling predatory mite)

Dacnusa sibirica/Diglyphus isea mix (for leaf miners)

Aphidoletes aphidimyza (Midge, attacks aphids)

Some of the flowers we plan to plant for the insects include:
Parsley and Cilantro (we will allow it to flower), Sweet Alyssum (we have seeds started and purchased a few plants), Sunflower (dwarf varieties), Marigold, Calendula, and Borage.We are also allowing a few Kale plants to flower.

The video below from P. Allen Smith is a nice overview of on insectary garden.

Harvest Sharing Gardens

The Campbell Community Garden was set up with three garden plots dedicated to growing produce to give away, plus a perennial herb garden for the gardeners to use part and and give away part. The idea behind the dedicating sharing gardens was to establish a system of giving away produce early on, so that when gardeners had excess veggies in their individual plots, it would be easy for them to give them away rather than let them waste away unharvested. We call these gardens the Harvest Sharing Gardens.

2012 was the first year for the Campbell Community Garden, with the first seeds and starts planted on June 1st. We didn't set a harvest donation goal, since we had no idea how much food we would be capable of growing. We ended up harvesting 861 pounds of food to give away to neighbors in need  in 7 short months!

Kale, Collards, Parsley, lettuce and Radishes were harvested on March 27th

Our goal for the Harvest Sharing Gardens for 2013 is to give away 2,000 pounds of fruits and veggies. So far we have given away 76 pounds!

In late February, garden volunteers started seeds started in pots to replace the over-wintering crops in the Harvest Sharing Gardens. Snap Peas, Kale, Arugula, Mustard, Beets, and more.

Thanks to Sun Gro Horticulture for the donation of Black Gold Seed Seedling Mix potting soil to get our seedlings off to a great start; and to Tempus Dictum Inc. for their financial support of two Harvest Sharing Gardens in 2013!

This spring we will be adding a 25 foot row of Rhubarb and 12 Blueberry bushes to our Harvest Sharing Gardens; so who knows how much we will be able to give away in 2014. If you want to support us in our efforts, please contact garden director Sarah Smith at 503-653-0015 or send an email to hectorcampbellnda@gmail.com