Ridgecrest Community Garden (RCG) June 2022 Newsletter
What’s new at the garden?
Welcome to the summer gardening season. We are looking forward to what summer will bring to the garden. Our garden layout is structured such that the herb beds along the front fence and the three vertical rows on the left when facing the garden from the road are community beds and the three vertical rows on the right are subscriber beds. The community beds are available for community use, either through harvesting seeds, propagating plants, or practicing cut and come again harvesting. However, the subscriber beds should only be harvested by the subscriber or with subscriber permission, as the subscriber has purchased their own space within the garden and are growing the food for their own consumption. We plan to start putting some signs up so that visitors are aware of the distinction of the beds as we don’t want to have our subscribers put in the work and then be disappointed with their results when someone else inadvertently takes their food without knowing how the garden works.
We will not be conducting any events for the month of June as we are expecting work to commence on our Herbal Zen Garden. We will schedule a grand opening event as more is known about the timeline, based on funding and our contractor’s schedule.
Each month we will be highlighting a few plants from the garden. We’ll be sharing the benefits with you and why we’ve chosen to grow them. Our plant highlights for the month of June are broccoli and morning glory vines.
Nutritionally, you can’t beat the benefits of Broccoli. Broccoli is a great source of potassium (provides 457 mg per cup) and has 2.5 grams of protein for every cup. Broccoli is also a source of phytochemicals that are associated with anti-cancer benefits, cardiovascular benefits, and eye health benefits. Keep your broccoli plants adequately watered and harvested to discourage the plant from going to seed prematurely.
The morning glory vine is featured widely throughout the RCG. We plant it for its beauty, ease of growth and diversity of use. As we’ve experienced in some of our own home gardens, it also appears to be a favorite of lizards. Out of the variety of uses, there are three that stand out as widespread gardening benefits. 1) the vine can be used as a ground cover to extend water retention within the soil and discourage weed growth. That can also be a con if there are low growing plants that the vine would choke out, 2) it can be trained on a trellis to climb over a bed to provide dappled shade during our extremely hot summers, and 3) it can be planted as a sacrificial plant for pests to consume, although with an average ten-foot growth per season, the plant will far outpace the pest if protected during early growth. Protect the plant as a seedling by covering it with a wire trashcan, removing the trashcan as it starts to vine.
What’s the news from the garden?
Three events were held in May by RCG board members: creating teas and tinctures, Ridgecrest library event on gardening, and spring planting day and plant swap.
The first event was held on May 7th. Tyrone Ledford presented Herbal Teas and Tinctures, showing the process from harvest to storing the tea flakes, and preparing the tinctures. He also provided the potential uses of each herb present in the garden. We were so excited by the community engagement at the event.
May 10th was our presentation at Ridgecrest Library. Merrie Giles and Kristen Lemon attended on behalf of RCG as presenters. The library has said that they plan to start a seed library where patrons will be able to get seeds for gardening or turn in seeds if they have an abundance. Stay tuned for more information. As we hear more on this topic, we will share.
May 21st was our spring planting event and plant swap at the Ridgecrest Community Garden. We welcomed in excess of two dozen community garden supporters cycling through the event. During this event, three different community garden beds were harvested and replanted with various summer plant crops. We were able to exchange plants and fill in some empty spots in the raised beds on the Community side of the garden. All frost dates have now passed, and we are planting directly in the soil for summer plants. All community members that expressed interest were walked through the concept of creating DIY self-watering Olla containers.
We are continuing our crowdfunding campaign for the Herbal Zen Garden. We are going to need your help to build a complete garden that will be aesthetically pleasing and will serve as a space for peace and healing. As mentioned, we expect our work to begin in June. You can donate using the link below. At this link, you can see the plans, donate for specific items or to give a general donation https://www.holisticdivineinnovations.org/crowd-funding.
Additional woodchips are available for subscribers in the blue trash can next to the port-a-potty in the garden. Take as much as you need for your subscriber bed. If you would like to see your bed featured in our newsletter, along with an interview on your “why” for gardening, please send a message via Facebook messenger to Ridgecrest Community Garden.
If you are interested in contributing or volunteer opportunities, you can email us at communitygarden.ridgecrest@gmail.com. We are in definite need of assistance from the community for summer watering schedules in the garden.
Zen out, Ridgecrest 😊