time to plant garlic and other updates

[Izetta Chambers]

Greetings Dillingham Gardeners:
A couple of updates:
1. I wrote, and the school received, a $1,000 schoolyard garden grant
from the State of Alaska Division of Agriculture. The funds will be
used to construct (4) 10' x 4' raised beds at the southern facing part
of the Dillingham Elementary School, outside of the school gym wall,
but within the fenced off area. This will make the garden area a
little protected from stray kids on the playground, but will still be
visible and easily accessible from the cafeteria door and from the
front entrance as well. We want it to be visible but not easily
disturbed by active children.
2. The Marine Advisory Program and other collaborating agencies are
going to be offering a Science Club program Wednesday afternoons from
2 to 3 pm at the Dillingham Elementary School. If you are interested
in volunteering your time, there will be some gardening and
agriculture activities, including some of the prep for the outdoor
elementary school yard garden. Please call Izetta at 842-8323 if you
would like to help out. The more adults that can lend their expertise
or just their supervision skills, the better. When we did Sea Week
this last spring, there were about 40 students that showed up pretty
consistently. I am anticipating having between 20 and 30 for science
club.
3. Michele Masley at the Bristol Bay Campus shared some of her
delicious lunch with my husband and I the other day at work (she is a
GREAT cook!) and her dish included garlic scapes, which I had never
had. We had a very nice discussion about growing garlic in Dillingham
and so I am going to try it this year. Have any of you tried to grow
garlic in Alaska before? Garlic is odd in that you plant it in the
fall time. Here are a few sources for garlic bulbs for growing:
www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com
www.southernexposure.com
www.territorialseed.com

4. There are still some things to harvest at the Senior Center
Community Garden. If you haven't been over there in a while, stop in
and take a look. Some of the plants got terribly overrun with weeds,
but you can tell there has been some effort at keeping the weeds at
bay. Thank you to all who have put in some time over there weeding
and tending to it this summer and fall. It looks a lot better than
last year, and I think with the addition of compost and fertilizer, it
could be even better next year.

5. Opportunities for collaboration and organization: There is another
group of folks who have been organizing healthy and engaging physical
activities within the community. The Dillingham Health and Fitness
Committee (another google group, if you simply type those works into a
search engine you can read about some of their activities) has
petitioned the Dillingham City Council to form a Parks and Recreation
Commission, as per City Code. If you are interested in perhaps
collaborating with this group (gardening activities would certainly
fall under both parks and recreation), give me a shout and I can add
you to that group, or you can request access via their group page at:
http://groups.google.com/group/DillinghamHealthandFitness

I would personally like to see a little more organization, and perhaps
a charter or some other mission statement for the Dillingham Gardening
Club. Perhaps it can be a sub-commission or committee of the
Dillingham Parks and Recreation Commission? Do any of you have any
thoughts on this matter? There are successful community gardens
around the State of Alaska, including one in Bethel that actually has
a waitlist! Normally, community gardens have individual plots that
are essentially rented or leased to individuals who tend them and reap
the harvests. In Tucson, the community garden we were involved in
charged $3 per month, but included drip irrigation, and free seed.
They also coordinated twice monthly garden work parties, which were a
lot of fun, and sometimes featured pancake breakfasts and such. It
was a great way to socialize with neighbors and learn about new
gardening techniques.

Happy harvesting!