Rose Roots Community Garden Updates
Good Morning Organic Gardeners, Woohoo the Garden is officially OPEN! Everything is looking so green and full of life this season. Thank you all for planting and being well on your way to a bountiful season. Also thank you to all who showed up for our first Thursday evening of full garden love! We had over 15 people there, YES! Even with social distancing we were able to give everyone a task to work on to earn service hours. Please keep it coming, we have some fun projects to complete to beautify the garden even further! June Monthly Garden Notes
Feeding Community with Blue/The Giving Table/Food Bank Update - Need Volunteers! We are lucky to have so many amazing gardeners that want to help the community. There is a couple (one an Arvada Police Officer) who would like to make a difference and help us distribute our additional produce while the Arvada Food Bank is not taking donations and in these trying times. Here are the detail:
Feeding Community in Blue will have many benefits for the garden and help 4-5 qualified families in our community. Officer Sterling from the Arvada Police will help coordinate deliveries to these families weekly. Families that are comfortable with the donation have been found. They were so grateful and filled with joy that it will be delivered in a more confidential setting. We will find a good home for all additional produce while creating great community beyond the garden.
In addition, we are giving excess produce to the Hope Connection and Community (aka Giving Table) with a delivery on Sunday mornings at an Arvada church. See their info on their Facebook Page.
Your veggie donations initially need to be washed at your plot faucet and placed in the west barn refrigerator for volunteers to package and sort for deliveries.
We will need at least 4-5 volunteers to help prep and deliver on Sundays and prep for pick up on Wednesdays around noon. Prep means cleaning, collecting for each family and dispersing into groups of food for each family/group.
Please email membership@roserootsgarden.org if you are interested in volunteering. Geremi Boom is coordinating this effort and will get your response.
This program does not replace the Arvada Food Bank-Community Table, but is an enhancement until they are able to take produce donations. There are donation boxes for hard goods at each barn for the Arvada Food Bank-Community Table in the interim of them not taking produce donations. Please give what you can during these hard times. We'll have all types of voted on sharing this season and keep you informed on the newsletter and website. Plant a row for the needy!
We are super excited to see how Feeding Community in Blue unfolds as our gardens start producing more veggies.
Please plant a row to give! Recipes will be greatly appreciated as well, bi-lingual if possible. Email your recipe to membership@roserootsgarden.org and we'll print for each family/group/our recipe book.
If you have other giving ideas, please bring them to the Monthly Garden Meeting on the first Monday of each month. It's going to be a great giving season!
Crusher Fines is Nearly Done
Thank you to everyone who has given time on the wheel barrow brigade, raking, laying paper, planning. A special thank you to Jim R and Gary W for all their coordination! We appreciate your dedication to get this project done! We finished the crushers last week in the children's area. This project has been high in labor and cost but with care and attention of not overflowing your garden plot dirt should last a bit of time. Before this project gardeners spent all our time weeding all summer everywhere! ACK!
Update on Covid19 Guidelines Remember folks, the CDC still has guidelines. Update for now.
REMEMBER - Minimum 6' social distance
REMEMBER - Please wear your masks while interacting. Help reduce the spread of a bad virus!
PLEASE DO - You may have received a waiver from DUG. This is a very important addition this season as COVID was not covered in the original waiver. Please use the below link if you have not filled out the 4 question waiver. Thank you if you have already completed!
https://form.jotform.com/201476244157050 Summer Plot Border Maintenance The Leadership team approved funds to improve plot borders where the wood is collapsing, needs replacing, or is no longer providing adequate separation between crusher fines and the plot. In some cases, the plots would be improved by raising all sides with a 2 x 4's reinforced with rebar. Gary and Jim, our garden Maintenance Team leads, have generously offered to take on this project but will need volunteers to help. Please email Gary at garyrandwilliams@yahoo.com by June 15 if you need garden plot improvements and to volunteer your services. This would be the full four plots if one plot needs work. A small budget of $1000 to start the work and will accomplish the immediate first. We hope to repair and add to all plots in the garden by season end. Thursday Evening Service Projects Couple of Thursdays ago we had a smashing evening with over 15 people helping accomplish many small tasks in the garden. Only about 5 this past Thursday. We hope you keep coming out to help get some cool projects done and adding to your service hours. Kendra will be calling to see if you'd like to serve on a committee to keep it simple. That list can be found on the website so think of how you'd like to give back and fulfill your 12 service hours.
Pollinator Garden Update
Tyler and Nicole have been busy cleaning up and maintaining the pollinator garden. Please take some time to just walk around and see how beautiful it is right now. Nearly everything is in bloom. We approved a $250 budget for them to cover the season. They recently purchased a super cool bird bath. The city will be bringing them a large granite rock to set up a memorial for Jesse (our pollinator leader that passed) sometime this season.
Giving back to the DUG Community
DUG asked if we could give some of our budget to a garden in need of compost. After reviewing our budget we gladly offered $150 to help Montbello 5 Loaves Community Garden with some compost.
Service Hours and Options
A gardener and I were chatting about service hours and she asked my if I knew about the 5 Love Languages (a book). We all have a love language that service us. 1. Words of Affirmation 2. Quality Time 3. Receiving Gifts 4. Acts of Service and 5. Physical Touch. Not everyone favors Act of Service or it just isn't as easy with your situation. In the past leadership equated the 12 hours to $7.00 per hour. Since some may have the language of gifts, we do have a need of some bigger material items that if you would like to give cash instead of service hours, please contact membership@roserootsgarden.org. We are working out the details but it will probably need to be a cash transaction to keep the accounting out of the DUG books. Some of the current top requests:
purchased compost for our gardens
additional wood borders & repairs
mulching lawn mower
New Mini Pollinator Garden
We have a new flower garden in the southeast corner of the garden near the gate. Laura and Anna planted several packets of flower seeds and some plants have been added. Please let membership@roserootsgarden.orgknow if you have any plants you'd like to add so not to disturb the seeds. They will contact you directly.
Mini Praying Mantis Released
The most adorable event happened a couple weeks ago. One of the students in the community raised a praying mantis that hatched many babies as a school project. He released them this past week. We hope they stick around as they are a beneficial insect of the garden, eating smaller pesty bugs that plague our plants.
New Street Entry Garden Sign
It's BIG, BEAUTIFUL and let's everyone know who we are and where we are! Thank you City of Arvada! After 8 years of being the entry to the Hills at Standley Lake Park we finally have a parks sign for the garden. The City of Arvada is one of our biggest fans and us theirs!
Compost area improvements
Some of you may have notice the improvements to the east compost area. We'll be finishing the west side as well soon. Please give attention to the sign of items that go in the staging area.NO ROCKS PLEASE!! It hurts when a rock pops back while mowing to cut the greens. Gardeners do not put anything in the bins. Compost Managers have a process to break it down and cook to 180 degrees. More information to come very soon in an education email.
Food Forests to Love
Analou, Barb H and Joan J are taking care of the four food forests this season. We recently added a Service Berry to the SE Forest and adding new seeds for the children's garden. If you tend/pull weeds for any of these Forests, please let membership@roserootsgarden.org know and we'll connect you with the Forest leader. Remember, these are fabulous for cooking herb snips and eventually veggies to share. Oh, and these Forests are put on water timers so they don't get under or over watered. Only place timers can be used.
Upcoming Projects
Project to work on this season- Children's NE and SW playgrounds and the North Utility area. If you are inclined to put down the last of the crusher fines and pull weeds we could really use the help. We will also need help with moving some heavy objects around as well. Thursday's Golden Hours are a time to help!
It's amazing how fast things grow once they are out of the ground. Everything has changed even in just two weeks. Soon our gardens will be producing food to enjoy at our table or donate for someone else's. Enjoy digging in the dirt, filling your soul and finding peace at the garden. We are community!
I grow plants for many reasons, to please my soul, to challenge the elements or challenge my patience, for novelty, or for nostalgia, But mostly for the joy of seeing them GROW. ~ David Hobson
For the love of gardening, Kendra and Garden Leadership
UPCOMING EVENTS
NOTE: If you are curious and not sure, these dates are posted on the website with short notice updates if necessary: www.roserootsgarden.org
Garden Monthly Meeting July 6th, 6pm At the Garden All gardeners, please join us back at the garden. We will be meeting at the garden and chatting about various topics. Come get informed, involved and use your voice to a good cause. If you happen to be there, please come join us. Oh and BYOC (Bring your own chair) or grab a seat on the ground. Thursday Event Taskers - The Golden Hour! Thursdays Weekly thru Season Every Thursday Karel or one of her helpers will lead a group to get a bigger task or several tasks started or completed, keeping all socially distant. We have some cool things to work on... the children's play area in the NE corner and the north inlet area. And then of course plain maintenance. Please remember your mask, gloves and water. Please see the website for a full calendar of events for the full season! www.roserootsgarden.org