Merchant Park Community Garden

We had a special guest at tonight’s meeting, Amy Srubas, the landscape designer for the garden they’re installing for the Mural at Addison & Avondale. She showed us their engraved brick program and we voted to start by having the garden sponsor one brick.

We’ve also shared their information on our facebook page, so you can find a link back to their facebook page and their email there – it’s aacommunitygarden@gmail.com if you’d like more information. They have special pricing until January, so if this sounds like something you’d like to be a part of now is the time to check it out!

Updates from our Meeting Agenda:

1. Financial report

At our last meeting, our savings were about $1,700. This month we are are just under $1,400 after paying for several months worth of mowing and weeding and the food and entertainment at our fall Harvest event.

2. Neighborspace update

• City Council Housing & Zoning passed, we are officially a Neighborspace Garden, the land to be held for this purpose in  perpetuity
• We’re hoping this will include money for fencing, asking Bruce for a plan we can use.
• Neighborspace suggests wood posts for the fence because they’re less likely to be stolen for scrap metal

3. Vote on new conflict resolution by-laws

• Suggested addition: Any executive committee members involved in the dispute must recuse themselves from final votes.
• We will post the full text with the proposed changes to website / send via e-mail, give everyone time to review (including Jessica)

4. Committee updates:

a. WIC

• 200 lbs. total, lettuce at our last drop-off
• recipes were helpful in using veggies they hadn’t used before
• do more next year with separate plots

b. Compost

• new Tumblers for food composting (with the right mix, it can go in 21 days in the summer)
• around the rail with the “lasagna gardening” with piled plants

c. Water

• system is shut down, but there is about 6″ of water in the bottom
• something for thermal expansion of the frozen water?

d. Maintenance

• several people trying for extended seasons
• could we plan incentives to get people to clean out their own plots?
• it would help to have some clear instructions for what to do
• people who want to leave their things, that’s fine,
• perhaps a charge for people who don’t contact and leave work for others

e. Planning & Construction

• Our plan was to cap at 50 plots, eventually (currently at 38)
• Hopefully in April we’ll finish the last 12 new plots to have final footprint
• Fence: around triangle or just plots? How do we keep it welcoming & accessible?
• Get some examples to look at from Bruce – open area separate from garden, open area with garden in it, combination, etc.?
• Take into account various concerns about community, access, boundary needs