Community Garden News
by Jean Stark
Gardener Highlight If you wonder how to make the most use of a small greenhouse, you may want to talk to one garden specialist in our midst. Read all about Randy here.
Welcome new gardener Welcome, Lizzy to the Community Gardens. Lizzy volunteers at the market to help take down and put away the chairs and tents. She has been growing food in pots at her home and is looking forward to putting those plants into the soil here at South Whidbey Tilth. Welcome Lizzy!
Mowing more At the beginning of the growing season the grass grows quickly and getting it to be manageable on only two batteries is an impossible task. The mowing team is working together to address the mowing and string trimming needed to keep the vole population down. They are doing a great job, thank you Donita, Phil, Makoto and Lizzy.
This is the second year we have needed to organize a mowing team. Before that, the grass was cut, and each garden plot weed-trimmed by one person every week for twelve years. It was something I took for granted when I signed on to my plot in 2021. In 2025 as I took over organizing the community gardens, I was approached by John Lee, who announced that after all these years, he was retiring himself from being the entire community garden’s mower and weed trimmer. That was when I learned that one person had been doing the job for everyone all that time. After all these years: Thank you John.
Chickens and Kitchens In May, the chickens moved from plot #24 to one of the farm plots near the Children’s Garden. The clucking conversation is a welcome sweet noise near the market area now. Plot #24 was Jenn Carlson’s, who originally designed it to be a demonstration garden to show how much can be done in five hundred square feet. The garden is a long narrow space: ten by fifty feet, with a composting fence on each short end. A plum tree provides, along with plums, dappled shade.
Now that the chickens are gone, we’re looking at amending the soil where the chicken coop was and envisioning a kitchen garden. Imagine a table to eat at inside a garden, and a small area for outdoor cooking classes where it’s possible to demonstrate making pesto’s, easy jam, and sauces picked right from the gardens. Interested in helping out? Let us know – we would love the extra hands.
The gardens are open to Tilth members who want to walk, gawk and get inspired to grow. Are you looking for a way to be involved in gardening without the responsibility of doing it all yourself? If you’d like to help water, join a work party, take a class, give a class on gardening, help restore garden spaces, help maintain spaces, please contact Jean at: gardens@southwhidbeytilth.org. There’s plenty to do in the gardens and you will walk away with something to enjoy at the table once you are back home.