We've planted!

A lot has happened at the Growing Places Indy Slow Food Garden at White River State Park in the last month! On March 14th our first group of volunteers, courtesy Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, came out and worked in fairly chilly and overcast conditions to dig and turn under the grass, weeds, and wild flowers begin to sprout in the garden beds. They also built a lovely compost bin that has already been receiving matter from the garden. Later that same week Matthew, Matt Hostetler and Tyler Henderson came back out to complete the work of tilling the soil.

On March 21st our second group of volunteers, again just under 20 folks, came out on another chilly day with heavy rain clouds threatening to dump on us at any moment. This hard working bunch was either undeterred, or motivated to work faster by the uncertain weather, and managed to spread 20 cubic yards of aged manure to top dress the soil (soil tests came back at safe levels for growing edibles but the pH needs some adjusting) and 6 tons of crushed limestone for walking paths to enable visitors to walk through the garden beds, not just around them. We really did not expect all of this work would get done in one work day! Please enjoy photos of the day's work, courtesy of Angie Hermann.

We must also offer hearty thanks to some friends who joined us on a Tuesday evening to rake out secondary paths in the garden beds and spread clover seed in these pathways. Our hope is to have a combination of limestone paths and "living" pathways that are planted in clover.

All of this work was exciting, and certainly made the project finally feel genuinely real. Of course, it's getting seeds and starts in the ground that makes it all start to come together.

This past Sunday, April 11th, another fantastic group of about 15 volunteers gathered for another successful day of work. They helped us with what threatens to be relentless weeding and planted the first starts and tubers. Tuber planting included seven varieties of potatoes and jerusalem artichokes (sunchokes). We have been starting seeds under grow lights and in a green house over the past couple of months. Our volunteer group transplanted three varieties of cabbage, several varieties of onions, leeks and scallions, parsley and tarragon this week. Thanks to Elizabeth Basile, you can view photos from our first planting day as well!

You can join us on Sunday, April 18th from 1-4 p.m. as we continue planting!

Information about more upcoming events will be posted soon.