All Tucked in for Winter

The Sheridan Street Community Garden is now tucked in for the winter; our last workday for the year was held this past Saturday. We were fortunate to have a group of University of Maryland students from the Alternative Breaks program to help us with some final cleanup tasks and get the compost piles all ready for winter.    

So you may be wondering: what will the gardeners do in the winter? The answer: lots of things!   

Our community gardeners will be working over the winter to plan next year’s season. They are busy writing bylaws to govern the community garden, and we’ll be accepting garden plot applications again in just a few short months. We’ll also be working together to plan what workshops to offer next year. If you, or someone you know, is interested in getting a community garden plot at the Sheridan Street Community Garden, please email me at cbalch@umd.edu.  

Another big winter task will involve planning for our first ever Prince George’s County Community Gardening networking and educational event. Similar to Rooting DC, this will be a half-day event on March 24, 2012 where community gardeners from across the county can network and learn from each other and from local experts. Stay tuned for details, and please email me if you’d like to be on the planning committee!  

I’ll also be working to co-facilitate Annie’s Project in the county early in 2012.  Annie’s Project is a course designed to empower women in agriculture. The course covers five areas of risk management: production, market, financial, legal risk, and human resources. Annie’s Project will be taught on Wednesday evenings from 6-9 pm at the University of Maryland Extension office in Clinton, MD starting January 25 and running for 8 weeks. For more information, and to sign up, contact me or visit http://www.anniesproject.umd.edu/.  

Other winter projects involve working with University of Maryland students, faculty and staff to work on developing landscape plans for new gardens and working to increase educational opportunities in sustainable agriculture. The garden may get to rest during the wintertime, but our staff, interns, and volunteers will manage to stay busy!