2014 Eastside Sprout CG Annual Report

2014 was a busy year for the Eastside Sprout Community Garden. Despite the usual hot and dry summer, production in the gardens in the spring and fall were substantial. More importantly the garden offered opportunities to educate and bring people together for service projects in the garden. A highlight this year for the garden was hosting SicloVerde in April. Eastside Sprout was the start point for a a bike tour that stopped at 10 community gardens around the city. We also had 2 large composting bins constructed by volunteers from Boeing. This year the community garden annual report was done in brochure fashion and highlights some of the activities in the garden for 2014.  The Eastside Sprout gardeners and partners look forward to a fruitful year in 2015!

Butterflies in the Garden

Since the middle of October we've had butterflies visiting our garden. The first cool front of the year in October brought the first monarchs into the area.  One of our beds is planted with zinnias and cosmos. This bed has become a butterfly magnet! Until the first frost of the year hits us this bed will continue to attract our little winged friends!

Salad Box Garden Sprouts!

Great News! The "salad box" garden has sprouted! We seeded this bed with a variety of lettuce seeds at our open house event a week ago and we have little bitty lettuce seedlings popping through the soil!

Garden Open House

The community garden hosted an open house event on Sat November 10. The event was a collaborative effort of the garden group and a group project of the Community Leadership Institute. The idea was to raise awareness of the garden, educate folks about good nutrition and the benefits of gardening and to bring neighbors together to celebrate the garden. A great turn out of folks showed up to participate in the free music, food and games for everyone.  A couple of highlight from the event included the start of a worm farm and the seeding of a "salad box" garden dedicated to growing lettuce over the winter. Thanks to the CLI team members for helping put this event together.

Eastside Community Garden Walk

Great day at the garden! The Eastside Community Garden Walk kicked off at the Eastside Sprout this morning. The walk, sponsored by Green Spaces Alliance, was a tour of 5 Eastside community gardens that went along a 3.3 mile route. The Bethel-Aries from Bethel AME Church provided some great spiritual music to start the day.

Work Day

We had a good turn out of folks at our work day on Saturday.  The main projects were getting two beautiful brightly painted metal benches set in concrete and building a new bed. Its almost spring planting time so we've begun cleaning out some of the beds, getting them ready for tomatoes, squash and other spring and summer veggies!

Garden Workshop

Our community garden hosted a garden workshop on Saturday sponsored by Green Spaces Alliance.  It was a little wet and chilly but we had a great turn out.  The workshop focused on creating and maintaining sustainable gardens.  The cool and wet weather did not deter dedicate gardeners and it was a fun morning of sharing ideas.