Spruce Street Community Garden Tour

Last evening several of the Strong Family Farm gardeners from Vernon were treated to a guided tour of the Spruce Street Community Garden by Bettylou Sandy of The EastSide Neighborhood Resource Center. Bettylou took the time to share the organic gardening methods that are used at The Spruce Street Community Garden with the gardeners from Vernon. She also pointed out the subtle differences that can be very important in achieving greater production in an organic garden setting. She showed the several different methods they used in creating their compost to refresh and replenish the garden beds. She demonstrated their rain water harvesting system, simple but highly efficient. During and at the end, Bettylou took the time to answer a multitude of questions from the gardeners who seem to know this was a great gardening educational opportunity. This reporter didn't have the heart to tell the gardeners that they had missed out on several Learn Shops on a variety of organic gardening aspects in July but after seeing this article should now realize and make a note to see if these Learn Shops are repeated next year.