Spring Drama in the Garden

A missing wheelbarrow and the battle against weeds are the latest bits of drama from the University of Maryland Extension’s Sheridan Street Community Garden.  If you’ve seen our new, recently-missing orange wheelbarrow tooling around Riverdale, please contact us at cbalch@umd.edu. Likewise, if you would like to take part in the battle of the weeds versus the vegetable seedlings, come help us out at our next garden workday on Saturday, April 21 from 9 a.m. to noon.

The Sheridan Street Community Garden is open for spring! Our first workday was held this past Saturday, with gardeners pruning raspberries, weeding the garden paths, composting garden weeds, and enhancing our greenhouse. We’ll soon be doing a major construction project to increase the number of plots, since we have a waiting list, and we’re hoping to help get more community gardens off the ground around Prince George’s County.   

We held a seed starting workshop this past Saturday; seed starting is a great way to save money, grow plant varieties you like, and increase your garden’s output. It can be daunting for beginners but you don’t have to spend a lot of money! Our workshop leader, Jennifer Fairfax, suggested using newspaper to make seed starting pots, and she also showed us that plastic salad mix containers from the grocery store make great seed starting containers. For more information on seed starting, and hundreds of other gardening topics, visit the University of Maryland’s Grow It Eat It website: http://www.growit.umd.edu/SeedStarting/index.cfm  

This coming Saturday, we are hosting “Growing Community Gardens,” an event for Prince George’s County Gardeners to build community, learn from each other, and gain gardening skills.  While the event’s registration is now closed, we will happily share information from the workshops to anyone who is interested—please email me at cbalch@umd.edu if you would like more information, and if you’d like to get involved in the gardening movement in the county!