Soil Test

Gardening at Morgan Springs 

Morgan Spring Community Garden is an organic garden in the heart of Bennington, Vermont.  Plots can be rented each spring to gardeners wishing to grow vegetables, herbs, or flowers.

Location:  The Morgan Spring Community Garden (MSCG) is located at the Bennington Recreation Center.  Plots runs along Bradford Street next to the tennis courts.  The Garden consists of 48 plots - , each approximately 120 square feet. 

Plot Fees:  Plots fees are $20, due when application is submitted.

Raised Bed Fees:  Raised bed fees are $10, due when application is submitted.

Deposit Fees:  Deposit fees are equal to half of the plot fees that are required.
 

Leadership:  MSCG is led by a steering committee comprised of volunteer gardeners.

Volunteer Commitment:  Gardeners are asked to contribute to the garden by volunteering time on activities that support the garden.  In addition to maintaining their own plot, all gardeners are asked to contribute a minimum of 4 hours to garden upkeep over the course of the season.  This may be accomplished by attended a scheduled work party, or working on any number of tasks from the work list kept on site at the garden. 

What is provided: A compost bins, water faucet with hoses, and garden shed. Gardeners must bring their own and are free to store them in the shed at there own risk.

Contact information:  For more information about Morgan Spring Community Garden, please contact Christine at (802) 379-2042 or letusgrowtogether@yahoo.com. 

Our 2014 soil test report from the University of Vermont:





It looks like we have to do some amending  at the end of the season.  Our pH is too high, which can be remedied by adding elemental sulfur.  Phosphorus levels are also high, but only time will bring those levels down.  Gardeners, avoid adding more phosphorus-rich fertilizers to your plots.  Phosphorus is the 2nd number on most bags of fertilizer and other amendments.  Everything else looks pretty good.  We will add the sulfur in the fall and see where we stand next spring.

Volunteers are What Makes it Work

Volunteers are the backbone of any organization, and our garden is no exception.  

Whether you work behind the scenes planning projects and ordering seeds, or are out there pulling weeds on a regular basis, the garden and its community thank you!  

Without volunteers, our organization would not be here.

Fall

And yes, we all get so busy with gardening that we forget to write about gardening or take pictures of our gardens.  I did snap a few this fall as plants were just starting to hit that fall neglect stage of growing.
Most gardeners have put their plots to bed.  There are still a few loose ends to tie up and we will be doing that next month.

Saturday, November 9th. 2013

1-3 pm

Join us for a garden clean-up work party

and 

a short meeting to follow

At the garden on Bradford Street

Now that we've had our killing frost, the garden won't be quite this lovely until next year.  

Looking Back

Despite a Memorial Day frost, inches and inches of rain, and temps in the 90's, people still got out and planted their summer gardens.  The garden is coming alive again, slowly, but with plots filling up every day.  As usual, weeds are growing faster than vegetables, and slugs are basking in the glory of saturated ground and dripping grass. 

The compost heaps are filling up with weeds as fast as they can grow.  We'll see who wins.

 In other news, our shed, built last year, has been waiting and waiting for a makeover.  We finally got around to it this weekend and this is the result:

A prosperous week, I'd say.

Growing

We came out of days and days of rain with the most glorious sunrise and the most perfect day for planting.  The garden is showing signs of life.  Many plots are planted with new seedlings and flowers and others are tilled and waiting to nourish whatever grows there.
Weeds are also prevalent after such an enormous amount of rain.  The dandelions were up to my knees and some of the crab grass was taller than me.  An afternoon of mowing, weeding, and painting and the garden is ship shape again.  Sunny days are in the forecast.  Time to get planting.

Compost, looking good!

Our garden compost system supports 48 garden plots.  It is made of recycled pallets and has been around for five years now.  We never thought it would last that long and I do think it will have to be replaced next year.  There are 6 bins, a row of three back-to-back with another row of three.  The bins are at various stages of decomposition.  Right now we have three bins of finished compost, black and crumbly and ready to be added to the soil.  We have two half-full bins that gardeners can put their garden waste into, and one bin that if totally full and cooking.

I have to say that it's not exactly "cooking."  We use a cold compost system.  That means that it decomposes slowly over a long period of time.  This method was chosen mainly because of it's ease.  We have very few compost-turning volunteers.

Every spring and fall we dig everything out and consolidate it.  We completely empty one bin, fill it with larger weeds, straw, and veggie waste.  We dump finer compost on top and the "almost finished" compost last.  As we're digging, we usually find finished compost at the bottom of the bins.  These get shoveled into the empty bins to be used in the gardens.

And the results are awesome...

Spring

Welcome to Morgan Spring Community Garden's new website and blog.  On these pages you will find everything you need to know about gardening at Morgan Spring.  The tabs along the top of the page will direct you to registration forms, garden guidelines, and contact information.  This main page will contain periodic posts and photos of garden happenings.  Please browse through the pages and make comments or suggestions.  This site is very much a work in progress.  Thanks for stopping by.