Rose RootZone June 2025 Iss. 1

Happy June, Gardeners!

It's been a beautiful month watching your gardens take shape! Rose Roots President Laura Bennett has been overwhelmed by the positive energy in the garden this year - a huge thanks to everyone who has been contributing.

Connecting with Community:

Community Connections

Our mission is to restore bonds between people, food, and nature and to work together to create a better local food system for future generations. The website and our calendar continue to evolve, so please check them regularly for updates. We are booking music in the garden and getting ready to collect vegetables for the food donation.

• The Veggie Van is a nonprofit that brings high-quality, freshly picked local produce to select areas of the city - mainly those identified by the City of Arvada and Jefferson County as priority 'food deserts.' It starts to pick up at our garden on July 6th and July 10th, then will swing by every Sunday and Thursday after that.  Right now you can pick spinach, lettuce, and rhubarb. You can always look out for future pick-up dates on the chalkboards around the garden.

• The Go Farm Farm Stand is already underway! We'd love to support this local farmers market every Saturday from 9a.m. to 12p.m. Stop by to check out their fresh heirloom vegetables, herbs, flowers, baked goods, and more, right across from the garden.

• And on Fridays, head next door for Yoga on the Farm, each Friday from 9a.m.-10a.m.

Live Music at the Garden

• Don't miss the bluegrass band The Hummin'birds at the Garden! Sunday August 17th. Keep an eye on the calendar on the website for the time.

Event Recap:

We would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to all who showed up to volunteer on June 7th. We were able to set up the planting bed for the commemorative garden bed at Westside as well as move mulch to protect the pollinators and, of course, weed, weed, weed! Southside is looking great, and so is the barn, which was cleaned out. Thanks to Calvin Chisum for shining and conditioning our tools. What energy! Thanks to Laura Bennett for providing pastries. Check out the slideshow for photos from the day and results!

Gardening Tips:

Many thanks to Geremi Bloom and Osiris Mancera for our tips of the month!

Community Herb Garden: Plot 89

Located in the north-central part of the garden, our Community Herb Garden is marked with a bright yellow sign and is open for all members to enjoy. You're welcome to harvest herbs—just remember to pick gently so the plants stay healthy for everyone.

Money-Saving Tips from the Community Herb Garden:

• Preserve your fresh herbs by freezing them! Simply chop up your herbs, place them in ice cube trays or silicone molds, and fill with water or olive oil. Next time you’re cooking, just pop a cube into your dish—whether it’s basil or oregano for spaghetti sauce, cilantro for chili, or dill for potatoes, you'll have fresh flavor ready to go!

• Try drying them at home and grinding them into your own custom seasonings! Tie small bundles of herbs like oregano, thyme, or basil with string and hang them upside down in a dry, well-ventilated spot. Once they’re fully dried (about 1–2 weeks), crumble the leaves and store them in airtight jars.

  • Pro Tip - a secondhand coffee grinder is perfect for grinding dried herbs and spices. Just be sure to dedicate one for this purpose- it’s hard to get the flavor of basil out of your morning coffee otherwise. Geremi was able to score one from Global Thrift for the bargain price of $2!

• Other creative ways to use herbs include blending them into softened butter and freezing in portions for later use, transforming herbs into herbal tea (check out our tea section in the herb garden for mint, chamomile, lemon balm, and peppermint!), and infusing them into oil or vinegar.

Transplanting Tips:

You can remove suckers (i.e. new offshoots coming off of the main stem) after transplanting tomato plants in addition to removing lower yellowing leaves to promote rooting!

Strategies to Combat Hail

It's that time of year! It's tough to predict when we might get damaging hail, but you can take steps to protect your garden, like erecting windbreaks near crops to break the force of pounding rain, wind and/or hail. Click here for these tips for hail protection and recovery from Denver Urban Gardens.

Updates:

Children's Play Area

The activity continues at the east side of the garden, as Deb Smith and her son removed the old play structure and Carli Peterson and her husband David replaced it with a new one! The area is also about to get more colorful - local artist Laura Hower will be painting a mural at the children’s area at the end of June, so stop by to support her.

Mites at Work

In a different kind of industriousness, an experimental endeavor to eradicate bindweed is getting underway at Plot 49! Getting rid of bindweed is an effort we can all get behind - and Rose Roots is recruiting some mighty mites to eat everyone's garden nemesis: bindweed.  Jeff Staniszewski is providing the bindweed mites, and Gail Gullickson is going to make a sign for the garden.  How will it turn out? Keep an eye on Plot 49 and this newsletter for updates!

This & That:

Community Notes

• Shout out to Leslie Silverman for her work on our website update and improvements!

• Big thanks to our chalkboard team Carli Peterson and Heather Logan for their gorgeous work updating our signs!  And we're grateful to Tom for donating the signs, which will also be used by Go Farm!

• Be aware, on June 28th at 11:00am, there will be a private memorial held at the garden in honor of Sue Donaldson. Please be respectful as you garden that day. 

• The Sharing Shed at the north end of the garden is a spot where everyone can drop still-useable garden items if you'd like to donate them to others. However! This is not a place for trash. Please only drop usable items - we don't have trash service or anyone employed to haul large trash items away, so please take junk items home with you.

• Please log your volunteer/service hours Here. We thank you for being such an amazing part of the garden community!

• If you have any thoughts you wish to share, feel free to reach out to leadership@roserootsgarden.org.

  
  

And finally! What's small, red, and whispers?

A hoarse radish!

We look forward to seeing you out at the garden.

Happy Gardening,

Rose Roots Leadership Team

Laura Bennett, President

Erin Newton, Vice President

Tom Glum, Treasurer

Maggie Alcorn, Administrator

Patty Sacks, Special Projects

Aaron Amaya, South Pollinator

Gary Williams, Operations

Jim Richards, Operations

Jack Nix, Operations

Please contact Michelle, Newsletter Editor, HERE with newsletter additions, corrections, comments, compliments, gardening tips or humor.