Welcome back!
To kick things off, let us tell you something about each of our Teaching Garden locations. Our program operates within three existing community gardens: Pierce Meadow in Leominster, Sundial in Fitchburg, and the brand new Maybarton in Clinton. Each setting is different and introduces unique benefits and challenges.
Pierce Meadow Community Garden
Pierce Meadow is located on the Doyle Community Park property, owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations. The setting is suburban with the Boys & Girls Club of Fitchburg and Leominster on one side, open park space on another, and woods on the remaining two, providing us with visitors of all sorts, including a recent woodchuck. Eeks! More on that later.
Sundial Community Garden
Sundial is definitely urban, sitting just one street off Main in downtown Fitchburg, but it has a private feel with the Fitchburg Art Museum to one side, the Sundial Apartments behind, and Lowe Park to the other side. There is regular foot traffic and plenty of pleasant interaction with the friendly Sundial residents as they pass by on their way to and from the building.
Maybarton Community Garden
This is by far our most urban garden; a recently reclaimed vacant lot, this garden sits right on High Street, Clinton’s main drag and offers us the benefit of full sun dawn to dusk, but also no wind block, and, so far, not so many bugs – good or bad. Hmm…the challenges here are definitely new to us and we’re intrigued. We promise to tell you all about it as the season continues!
While
understanding the location of your garden – and all that might mean – is critical, our weekly Teaching Garden lessons operate much the same regardless of the setting. Simply put, we teach people to garden by gardening together. This encompasses observing and responding to whatever curve balls a garden site throws at us as well as building a strong sense of community.
Since we’re usually working with beginner gardeners, we teach a very structured, intensive planting method called square foot gardening. It was developed in the 1970s by Mel Bartholomew to produce more harvest with less work and takes a lot of the guess work out of garden planning. You can check it out in our Growing Guide if you’re interested in knowing more.
Next post we’ll fill you in on all the great gardening that’s been happening so far this season, so check back soon!