Category Archives: Volunteer

2011 – ‘Building from the Ground Up’

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It’s been a fantastic year, with many milestones to celebrate. In 2011, we organized the community around a downtown garden, were successful in raising funds to support the development of the garden, designed and built phase one of the garden.

We commenced construction on the urban lot in August, and regularly spent weekends through November laying pavers, digging, building raised beds, mulching and more digging. We had 20+ amazing volunteers join us in this effort, together we logged over 350 hours of volunteer time during garden work days!

I am pleased to say that we have the ‘main street’, community patio, 4 rain barrels and 18 raised garden beds complete and ready for spring gardening. All of the raised beds have been reserved by volunteers, we are currently keeping a waiting list for interested gardeners.

Our next step is to build a shed over the winter, plant ornamentals in the spring and build an urban pumpkin patch in late spring. In the meantime, we will reconvene our group of gardeners after the new year to start planning our harvest schedules so we are ready to start planting in March!

Happy Holidays all, and looking forward to 2012 in the garden!

It’s Starting to Look like a Garden!

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We had a great group of volunteers this weekend, the raised garden beds are built and installed on the garden site! We are expecting the soil to be delivered in the next few weeks so we can fill the beds and get some garlic in before the first frost.

A special shout-out to Christian and his young friends from Circus Harmony who brought their trailer and were eager to help. They loaded up the raised beds in the trailer, tansported them across the sizable lawn and placed them in the garden. I don’t know what we would have done without them, and it was fun to have children involved in the garden.

Let’s Build Some Beds

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The pavers are layed, the stone patio is in place, the sloped land has been leveled, the salvaged lumber has been delivered – now let’s build some garden beds (finally, the fun stuff). We can use all the help we can get, so stop by the garden this Saturday if you are free…did I mention power tools!

When: Saturday 24 September
Where: 1631 Martin Luther King Drive
Time: 9am

Please RSVP to urbanharveststl@gmail.com if you plan on attending. Hope to see you there!

Ground Breaking…Finally!!!

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After countless months of organizing, planning and fundraising, we will finally begin to construct the downtown community garden tomorrow, Saturday 13 August.

Step 1: Install pavers in the main path. Bobcat of St. Louis has generously donated a skid steer for the weekend and our very own Terence Darwen is going to man the beast and dig some trenches. Architect/ Garden Planner Joseph Ostafi will be on-site managing the madness while Landscape Architect Chris Brandriet will lead the effort.

The paver installation will likely take this entire weekend, along with the following weekend.

Step 2: Construct raised garden beds. We will be purchasing RECLAIMED old growth pine from American Timber Salvage in St. Louis. Our 4×8 beds will be built from pine which dates back to the late 1800′s, salvaged from old buildings in the region! American Timber Salvage has graciously offered to cut the pieces to size and deliver them to our site.

Step 3: Deliver soil to the site and fill the raised beds. St. Louis Composting is providing 16 beds worth of soil, so that is how may we will start with this year.

Step 4: Accept 2011/2012 gardener contracts and start planting some fall crops! Priority will be given to those who have volunteered or donated toward the development of the community garden first. After that, plot assignments will be made based on a first-come, first-serve system. We presume there will be a waiting list, and hope to continue fundraising throughout the winter and raise enough money to build more beds in the spring.

Note: It is not too late to volunteer and get your name on the priority list. We will be on-site constructing the garden every weekend in August and September and can use all the help we can get. Notifications of work days will be posted on our facebook page.

Thank you to everyone who has supported, promoted and contributed toward the success of the community garden thus far. Together we will build the first downtown community garden from the ground up!