Community Garden hosts workshop and installs water system

On Monday, April 22, the Plains Community Garden sponsored a seed-starting workshop. The meeting was well attended and everyone had the opportunity to pot up tomatoes and other transplants and to plant pepper, lettuce and other seeds for early starts in the garden.

The star of the show was Milton Pierce, owner of the potting shed in St. Regis. Milton entertained all with jokes and humorous stories while teaching the basics of growing your own plants for your garden.

Drawing for the door prizes livened up the evening. Prizes included seed start mix and garden tools.

Every gardener left with smiles and a dozen or so plants and starts. The workshop was free and open to all Plains area residents.

On Saturday, May 4, seven gardeners from the Plains Community Garden met to install the new drip irrigation system for the garden. Working cooperatively, the installation went very smoothly, and was completed in just three hours.

This system will service the first two banks of 40 plots, the community

rhubarb and winter squash area, and the “Peaceful Place” corner. This area is set aside for quiet reading and resting, with colorful landscape plants.

The new drip system will ensure lots of water to every gardener’s plot on a daily timed schedule.

“Drip systems tend to increase the health of the garden plants, and result in much higher yields,” according to the garden director, Rena Johnson. Forty-five plots have been rented this year, and installation of the remaining drip lines will occur in about ten days.