Rainbow Garden visits Morning Glory

We had a very productive, informational visit to the Morning Glory Garden! Thank you to Nilsa and Jeff for coming, taking pictures, and asking great questions!

I made a small drawing of what the Morning Glory garden layout is so you can better picture the notes below:

Layout of Morning Glory Garden

Garden Project Funding

- Mostly self-funded! Sell harvest boxes in the summer for $20 and deliver to local customers. Raise about 3,500/year from harvest boxes

- Citizens Committee grant in the beginning, but they don't like applying for grants because of strings attached

Rainwater Irrigation

- Their garden uses quarter inch tubes ordered from https://www.dripworks.com/ 

- A drip hole every 10 to 12 inches in the plant bed

- Connected to water containers and a pump is used to power the water pressure. See diagram above for how they have it set up. One set for the high production farming fueled by water hydrant water and one set for the rainwater which is used in the hoop house and the member beds.

- Electricity for the pump comes from solar panels (DC energy converted to AC for the pumps)

Garden Maintenance

- Use coffee burlap sacks to line the paths. This keeps weeds from growing! Less weeding and eco friendly materials.

- Plastic material for plant beds to keep weeds out. Do not cut out holes but use a blow torch to create space for the plants.

- This works with seedlings, not seeds.

Compost

- Do not compost weeds! Those go in a separate pile for the department of sanitation brown bin program.

- Can use coffee, food scraps, and beer grains from a local brewery. Also horse manure! 

- Worms came with the horse manure

Membership

- Quality over quantity. Do not chase after members - if they have an interest, provide information and have them reach out via email/phone if they are truly interested.

- Garden is divided into high production and membership sides.

- Membership costs $30/year.

Solar Panels

- On the roof of the casita and a complex set up to convert electricity from DC to AC for more universal usage.

- Another solar panel used for the water pump on the other side of the garden

- Funded by the CSA-style harvest boxes

Patience!

- Aazan reiterated several times that gardening takes hard work and patience! He encouraged us to have a one-year and a five-year plan. Start small and keep making improvements. 

Left to right: Aazan, Gigi, Nilsa, Jeff