Survived the Hurricane

With the exception of a few buried melons, toppled tomatoes and slanted sunflower stalks, the garden survived Irene with fairly little damage. Yesterday afternoon, during our first fall volunteer session, we were able to get those tomatoes staked and tied back up and brainstorm about fall planting. Special thanks to Tyson Barker for his care in tending to the plants and putting in some overtime for those tomatoes.

Ready, Set, Fall 2011

While we love summer at the PHG, we can't wait for the semester to start next week!  Are you ready to get involved?  Check out our How To Get Involved Page with details about next steps to take. 

Note: Our meeting and work hours have changed for the semester!  Fall 2011 garden work hours will be:

• Monday 1-3 pm
• Thursday 5-7 pm

The new work hours start next week!  Check the calendar for more details.  Come out and get some of these:

Sigh, yum, and happiness.

 

Combat Stress with Gardening!

As new and returning students prepare and begin to return to the dorms and local housing this weekend, we'd like to take a minute to plug our garden club. As you can see from the infographic above, courtesy of our friend Jen Rhee, college students can experience a lot of stress from a lot of different directions. While academic pressure may be hard to avoid, there are lots of great ways to keep it in check and combat the stress of relocating and making new friends. Our suggestion to those of you looking for a hobby and perhaps some new friends: Come on out to the Public Health Garden!

We are conveniently located right near the Scholars dorms and Eppley Recreation Center. Nurturing the land you live on, connecting with fellow students, and becoming part of a growing group (pun intended) of engaged and enthusiastic parents will not only ease the transition - it may help you fulfill community service requirements AND contribute to a fresh, local diet rich in produce.

Watermelon Wednesday

We were blessed with B-E-A-UTIFUL weather, volunteers, and watermelon during an impromptu end-of-summer celebration and the last Wednesday evening volunteer hours of the season. Fear not, future farmers: we will continue to welcome happy helpers throughout the fall - just on different days of the week.

Stayed tuned in the coming weeks for a post regarding official fall volunteer hours. Next week we will be welcoming new students and helping hands Monday (August 29th) from noon until we run out of steam and on Thursday (September 1st) from 5:00pm until dusk.

Join us for bed-building, plot-planning and regular site maintenance. As always, pictures of our progress can be found on our Facebook and Flickr pages.

Bed Construction Update

One down (err... up), five to go!

Sheridan Street Community Support

A few executive members of our garden club had the fantastic opportunity to learn about pests, plant diseases and how to manage them from local expert/hero and State Master Gardener Coordinator Jon Traunfeld via a lecture held at Sheridan Street Community Garden earlier this week. Thanks to their expertise, we feel like we are (organically) winning the battle against the squash bugs who recently infiltrated our patches. Special thanks to our friend Christie Balch, the University of Maryland Extension Program Coordinator at the Center for Educational Partnership, for keeping us in the loop.

Great Start on the Raised Beds

Our incredible staff and volunteers stayed well into the evening hours on Wednesday to help us get the foundation built for the first of six raised beds and test out our new head lamps. As always, we took tons of pictures and posted them on our Facebook and Flickr pages and encourage you to check them out as well as continue to follow our progress here on the blog.

Bed-Building Time!

It's Wednesday and you know what that means: Volunteer hours on site tonight! Apart from weekly weeding and deep watering, tonight's volunteers will be helping us construct our raised beds. All cedar provided by T.W. Perry is on site and ready to house our growing garden. So strap up your boots, grab a reusable bottle of water and come on down at 5:00pm.

Crisis Averted

Special thanks to Carin Celebuski and the Landscape Services crew she recruited to re-install the silt fence and clean up erosion after all that rain earlier in the week. You're the best, Carin!!

TerpQuest Kids Sure Can Garden

Check out the leafy greens and bean sprouts shooting out of the containers the TerpQuest kids planted over the last two weeks. Nice work, huh? Not only did they get those seedlings started, they helped us eradicate squash bugs, squash bug nymphs, stink bugs and weeds AND they helped us get tomatoes planted in the first official community bed at the base of the patio.

Thanks for your help, kids and counselors!

Strong String Beans!

Looks like we dropped a few bean seeds while planting with the TerpQuest kids last week. I bet the groups coming this Friday will be excited about these sidewalk sprouts!

Raised Beds! Thank You TW Perry

We at the Public Health Garden are very excited about yesterday's delivery to the site from TW Perry.  We are going to start building the raised beds for the upper terrace of the site this week.  Let us know if you are handy with building and want to join us.  We will start work tomorrow on site at 5 pm.  

  

Thank you again to TW Perry for their generous contribution to our project.  Check out their wonderful Green Building site for details on their ongoing efforts towards sustainability.

College Park Patch

Thanks to the College Park blog, The Patch for covering our story! Check it out here.

Hooray Storage!

Thanks to everyone who helped us order, retrieve, build, move and fill the storage sheds during our weekly volunteer hours tonight. Throughout the growing season, a number of local businesses have donated tools, time and thoughtful suggestions to our cause. With consistent College Park campus and community support, we have not only met, but have exceeded our greatest expectations for the summer season already - and we've just stepped into August! Visit our Facebook page for more pictures.

"Cultivating Research, Fostering Community"

We are proud to report that a new story about the Public Health Garden is highlighted on the University of Maryland's homepage. Check out the front page of the university website and you'll see some familiar faces pop up in the scrolling banner. Click here to go directly to the story.

Maryland Newsline Coverage

Thanks Brooke for coming to visit us and covering our story this summer!

Green Beans and Tomatoes Around Town

Above you see Public Health Garden tomatoes and green beans served up to our table at Alewife in Baltimore, MD.  See more details on sister blogs: Just Saying and Adventures in Container Gardening.

Another wonderful adventure and learning experience of getting our food from the ground to the table.