We’re less than a month away from the March equinox (March 21st), the unofficial start of spring, and the SW Community Garden is getting ready!

With the input of voters, who either stopped by the garden and dropped off their suggestions, or voted in our online survey, we came up with a planting plan that we hope will cater to SW stomaches. For the spring, we’ll be planting: kale, lettuce, carrots, spinach, peas, broccoli, beets, cabbage, radishes, strawberries, peanuts, and a variety of onions. Once these crops have had their fun in the sun, we’ll replace them with others with the goal of growing something all year.

To preserve the health and balance of the soil, and to deter pests and diseases from getting too comfortable in the garden, we will be rotating the crops on a semi-seasonal basis. We chose to do this because plants have a variety of appetites, some feed on nutrients in the soil more than others, and others (legumes) add nutrients (nitrogen) to the soil, so it is important to cycle through the different crop varieties for sustainability purposes.

An example cycle to follow is: fruits->roots->legumes->leaves. (Fruit examples: cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, crops with seeds inside them; Root examples: beets, radishes, turnips, carrots; Legume examples: peanuts, beans, peas; Leaves examples: lettuce, mustards, arugula.) An important note to consider within this cycle is that fruits do best when grown during the summer months.

We hope to make the garden as sustainable as possible, and are working with the urban composting company, Compost Cab, on being a local drop-point for food scraps so we can start producing our own compost. To stay in the loop with this project, and other activities we have planned, check out our Facebook page, Twitter, or website.

And don’t forget about the spring kick-off in the garden on March 22nd, from 1-5pm! (address: 1098 Delaware Ave)