Welcome to Dig IN!, Growing Places’ blog to guide you through the gardening season!
If you’re familiar with our work, you might know about our Teaching Garden, an educational program designed to teach people how to grow, harvest and use their own fresh produce. During the course of a full season of weekly Teaching Garden lessons, we see all kinds of things happening in the gardens, some of them unique to North Central MA. When we gather, everyone has something to contribute, so we garden as a team – GP staff, experienced Garden Guru instructors, and program participants – to work with the season and grow the best garden possible.
We know that sometimes gardening can be a very isolated activity without opportunities to connect with other gardeners, especially if you’re growing in your own backyard. When things go wrong, it’s not always easy to figure out what’s happening. We’ve all had the experience of trying to look online, only to see that the closest example is posted by someone all the way in California, leaving you unsure if you’re making the right diagnosis at all.
With this digital space, we’ll spread the benefit of our Teaching Garden lessons happening right here in North Central MA to you by sharing our observations and keeping you up to date on how we’re managing those place-based gardening challenges, like this year’s late start and the scanty (but glorious!) rainfall. Each post, we’ll hone in on what seem like the most important discoveries and teachable moments of the week for you to take into your own garden.
We hope you’ll become part of our extended team by posting in the comments to let us know what you’re seeing, too. We’re excited to hear how your season is going!