The Test Bed is Born!

Today we built the first test bed for the Alliance Community Garden. We met at the church at 8:15 a.m. and had the planter built, full of soil, planted and seeded by 12:00 p.m. Way to go, teamwork!



For supplies, we used:

*52 cinder blocks from Home Depot
*3 yards of premium soil from Silver Creek
*5 bags of concrete-grade sand from Home Depot
*2 bags of mulch from Home Depot


We built the beds in a rectangular formation (4 blocks wide, 9 blocks long, 2 blocks high), lined the bottom with newspaper (free--the Colemans are proud Star-Telegram subscribers) and added a layer of sand to help thwart the weeds. We had additional bags of sand available in case we needed help for leveling the first row of blocks. Thankfully, the patch of land we picked was fairly level, so our sand use was minimal.

For plants, we brought several starters we had planted at home and transplanted them into our new garden. Though we're a bit late in the season to start, we wanted to see how far we could go with radishes, beans, okra, peppers, broccoli, cauliflower, and spinach. To help ward off unhelpful bugs, we planted a row of marigolds to surround the bed. For fun, Dan added a few sunflower seeds to the very edges: that boy has grown sunflowers since he was itty bitty.

For irrigation, we attached two super-hoses to our existing waterline, and have plans to build a water-saving rain barrel soon.



Many thanks to David and Beth Fitzpatrick (and helpful pooch Romo), Kern and Dan Coleman. We hope this test bed will be "a sign unto us" and an encouragement to those who would like to join us for spring planting. We'll have details on how you can reserve your spot in the garden soon.

And for those attending the AUMC Lord's Acre Festival on October 29th (you're all invited!), we'll have special opportunities for future gardeners.

Again, if you'd like to participate in the garden, please let me know!

Cheers and Blessings,
Britta