Our Community Garden

Known as UA Community Garden, our plot at Highland and Mabel just north of the Highland Garage on the UA campus is no longer a vast lot of bare soil. Last week, we had our Meet&Greet where community members exchanged ideas and shared a delicious meal, and the excitement was building up waiting for the garden and imagining all the possibilities. The space is now showing signs of garden beds and community, and at the conclusion of a 6 hour work day we had successfully filled 8 beds with native soil (after sifting it), earthy compost from Tanque Verde Farms, and beautiful aged manure from Campo Urbano (in approximately a 3:2:1 ratio). 15 of our 18' x 3' community plots were excavated yesterday and we were given the task of filling them to create sunken beds. We are planning to dig and fill 47 beds (community and production) in our garden, but it will be a gradual process. It was wonderful for us all to share in the labor and work together in making our first mark upon this land that we are fortunate enough to use and will be able to transform into a beautiful community space where people can learn and connect and create and experiment and grow and grow food.

*We will post again here when another community work day is happening, so check back! Also, if you have given into the epidemic of facebook, look for us there (as Garden in the Desert) for events and pictures!*

pictures (top to bottom): 1. the excavated beds 2. pouring compost 3. hardworking sifters 4. more sifting! 5. GITD about to fall asleep in an unfilled plot at the end of a long day :)