Warning: Hoop houses are highly addictive; once you take your first puff,
you won't be able to quit.
(They are GREAT!)
---McG
----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Conrad" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; "KBR" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
<[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens
> The Hartnett Community Garden has one gardener with five plots. One of
> the plots (8x12) is covered with a hoop house that is alternately
> plastic in the winter and remay in the summer. It seems to do a great
> job to extend crop seasons for them. The structure is just about six
> feet tall and does not cast significant shade on the other plots, with
> four foot grass pathways between. I've been tempted to replicate.
>
> fgc
>
> Fred Conrad
> Community Garden Coordinator
> Atlanta Community Food Bank
> 732 Joseph E Lowery Blvd, NW, Atlanta, GA 30318
> ph: 678.553.5932 fx: 678.553.5933
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.acfb.org>
> Our mission is to fight hunger by engaging, educating and empowering our
> community.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 1:01 AM
> To: KBR; [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens
>
> As a community structure, or in individual gardens?
>
> One of the gardeners at my community garden has a plot in the center of
> the hot sunny area, and he has chosen to grow grapevines that are now so
> rampant that, underneath the vines, his garden is a secluded island of
> shade. His garden is so interesting, with blackberry vines winding among
> the grapes, pansies growing 2-3 ft. high to reach some light, and other
> edibles tucked into every possible space as well as garden art, that no
> one complains about any shade cast on their plots, though I think only
> the path gets significant shade. The vines are supported by a series of
> arbors.
>
> Our other shade structure is the stone pines at one corner of the
> garden. Someday they'll come down (one fell down on its own last year),
> but that's where we put the sign-in table on work days, and where we do
> things like shelling fava beans on work days when it's too hot to be out
> in the sun.
>
> I've seen shade structures in a few other gardens, mostly small areas
> for eating or teaching. Usually no more elaborate than a slat-roofed
> open structure.
>
> If it were up to me, I'd plant a few fast-growing, drought-tolerant
> native trees/shrubs along one edge of the community garden to provide
> shade and also to feed the birds so that they don't have to rely so much
> on what's in the gardens. Here in California, my top choices would be
> elderberry (for the flowers and berries) and coyote brush (for the
> insects it supports, and because the shrubs can be sculpted into a small
> shade structure). OK, if it were really up to me, I'd go all out and
> plant a multispecies hedgerow of 5 or 10 native shrubs.
>
> At 8:58 PM -0700 7/21/08, KBR wrote:
>>Does anyone have any experience with community gardens installing shade
>
>>structures in their gardens? I'd like to hear the pros and cons.
>>
>>Kate, Wisconsin"If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope
> for it."
>
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> _______________________________________________
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> ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and
> to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
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_______________________________________________
The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's
services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out
how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org
To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected]
To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription:
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