Monday, February 26, 2024

Major News! Grant received for accessible beds, water connection, and a food forest!

Great news about the Penn Community Garden! We received a grant from Ag and Markets to rebuild 30 garden beds, run a water line from the fire hydrant with a water meter, and establish a food forest around the shade shed.

We built a demonstration bed that is 8' L X 4' W X 2 ½ tall; the other 29 will be 10' L X 4' W X 2 ½ tall. The bed is made from larch lumber and the sides are galvanized metal. We'll be using the Hugelkultur method, which is a centuries-old, traditional way of building a garden bed from rotten logs and plant debris. These mound shapes are created by marking out an area for a raised bed, clearing the land, and then heaping up woody material (that's ideally already partially rotted) topped with compost and soil.

If you wish to keep your existing garden bed(s) please let us know! The new bed is at the garden by Thursday, February 22 for you to look at.

We'll start construction in April and the garden will be completed by September 14, 2024. We will start on the front of the garden and then replace the beds behind the tool shed. Below is a picture of the new garden bed construction.