GICD news and plant sale
Don Lambert
EVER GROWING
April 2012
News from Your Community Gardens
Plant Sale Time is Here!
April 21-22 (Sat and Sun) East Dallas Community Garden, 1416 N Fitzhugh
April 28 (Saturday) Our Saviour Community Garden, 1616 N Jim Miller Rd
Our 16th annual plant sale will be held on Earth Day weekend. Come celebrate the day with GICD and local community gardeners by buying bedding plants, herbs, flowers, vegetables and anything else GICD can grow or get donated for this fundraiser. We hope to see you there.
We know that times are hard and that growing your own vegetables and doing your own yard work makes good sense. So, get your ground prepared, bring some money, and come ready to haul away the best plants found anywhere.
From our own greenhouse we will have heat tolerant cherry tomatoes (including the famous Texas Wild!), and our ever popular selection of peppers, eggplants, basils and other herbs. But quantities are limited, so early shopping is advised. Print a sale poster from our website www.gardendallas.org.
Area Community Gardeners Hosted by GICD
On March 3rd, a regional group of community gardeners met at GICD’s Center for Growing People, for a “Lunch ‘n’ Learn” session. This is a periodic gathering of folks sharing ideas, and learning by touring garden projects. There were over 30 attendees from gardens in Plano, Coppell, Dallas, Richardson, Grand Prairie, DeSoto, Irving, and other North Texas communities. Garden tours included the family plot gardens (Plot Against Hunger), the pantry donation gardens (Just Greens), chicken project, composting center, greenhouse, and sessions on making compost tea, growing plants from seed, straw bale gardens, and bokashi. The group is working towards being a resource group and network that can promote garden project sustainability.
20th Anniversary of the Live Oak Community Garden
The highly successful Live Oak Community Garden in East Dallas was started in 1992 by the Communities Foundation of Texas, and dubbed the “Open Door Garden” until it became a GICD project in 1994. This is not the oldest community garden in Dallas, as that honor belongs to more famous East Dallas Community Garden started 4 years earlier. With thousands of Asian refugee families settled nearby, gardening spaces for Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians were in great demand. Within walking distance, GICD started a third refugee garden project, the Peace Community Garden in 1998.
Currently, about a dozen Bhutanese families are our newest addition. Four ladies started last year, and we have just finished training another 6 (see photo of trainees in the greenhouse at the Center for Growing People, Our Saviour, in the Plant Sale story). Part of adding new gardeners requires a major renovation of the Live Oak garden. The new gardeners and community volunteers will have several workdays over the next few weeks to get the site ready. We are currently seeking funding for necessary materials, but the hard work of clearing trees and brush, removing old structures, and other preparations are already underway. We plan to celebrate this work and the 20th Anniversary with a community event in September. --Please watch for a celebration announcement.
A Reminder: Please Buy Fresh Asian Vegetables at the East Dallas Community Garden
The farmers market at this garden has operated for two decades. You do not have to speak an Asian language to buy current offerings of young mustard greens, spring onions, lettuce and fresh herbs. These vegetables travel zero miles to reach you, and the gardeners are real farmers, selling what they grow themselves. It is located on Fitzhugh, right next door to Jimmy’s Food Store, so drop into the garden on you next visit.
Your best time to drop by is early on Saturday mornings. This market is a little bit of Southeast Asia right here in Dallas. All earnings go to support these hard working senior gardeners.
UTD Garden to be Relocated
The student garden at the University of Texas at Dallas is soon to be relocated to a site a few hundred yards away, due to campus road construction. GICD helped plan and build this garden in 2006, and has provided some ongoing planting materials, training and assistance. We plan to continue this relationship and to serve on the steering committee for the new garden.
GARDENERS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT: FaceBook & online www.gardendallas.org
-- Don Lambert Executive Director Gardeners in Community Development 972-231-3565 www.gardendallas.org