Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout06.27.2019 Community Garden MinutesColleyville Community Garden Minutes Thursday, June 27, 2019 Executive Conference Room City Hall Attendees Committee members: Linda Newton, Uma Lal, Rich Hendler, Natalie Genco City Representative: Lisa Escobedo Absent: Amanda Novak, Pam Buie Call to Order Chairman, Natalie Genco called the meeting to order at 8:30am Approval of May Minutes Corrections - Linda pointed out a few misspellings of her name in the May minutes. Natalie apologized. It was decided that for future, we would like to include who was absent in the minutes. Rich motioned to approve the May minutes and Linda seconded. The minutes were approved. New Committee Members Lisa said the city will make a posting asking for new committee members in August. Natalie mentioned that Claudia Bevel expressed an interest in joining the community garden committee and that her husband is an experienced gardener. It was suggested she be invited to begin coming to meetings. Natalie will do this. Linda reported that she contacted Sammy Bowling and the McPherson Family to see if they would like to join the community garden committee. They declined but asked to be updated periodically. Linda still has 2 people to contact about joining the committee. Uma suggested someone contact Bill Utley and Rose Bedwell from the garden club as they have a wealth of experience. Natalie agreed to do this. Installation Budget We estimated that our budget to start the community garden will be $8,000 to $12,000. This will be our target for fundraising. This will not include a fence around the garden which we won’t need initially. We will create a phased budget which will allow us to plan for future needs. Yearly Budget Rich suggested we use $2,000-$3,000 as our budget for yearly expenses. Natalie guessed that the N Richland Hills community garden had a much lower budget of around $300 for garden supplies. We all liked the idea of a $2,000-$3,000 budget as we could do much more with this. This budget will cover replacing wood for beds as needed, tool replacement, hoses, etc. Big Dig Day We discussed our planned Big Dig Day of Nov 2, 2019. Linda checked her calendar for school and city conflicts and found none. She noted that Nov 4 is a student holiday. We didn’t think this would be an issue. Natalie asked if we may have a conflict with Keep Colleyville Beautiful’s Pumpkin Mash Dash. Lisa reported that the group has been dissolved so they will not have a Pumpkin Mash Dash this year. Our rain/backup date is planned for Nov 9. Brochures for Fundraising Linda showed us the tri fold brochures she has been working on. Everyone loved them. Natalie suggested using the community garden logo that has been created for us. She will send this to Linda. Linda wants to also include the city logo. Linda will also include our new email address: ColleyvilleCommunityGarden@gmail.com. The brochures should be ready for distribution by our next meeting. Publicizing Big Dig Day Linda suggested we put a flyer asking for volunteers at Hall’s when their pumpkin patch opens. We all liked this idea. Garden Plan We discussed plans to redraw the garden and decided that we don’t need any changes and we are leaning towards keeping the plan as is. We specifically spoke about putting a tree in the middle of the garden as Natalie, Amanda and Linda saw in N. Richland Hills at their community garden. Rich and Uma did not like this idea. There was concern the tree might throw shade on garden plots. Natalie will work on getting exact measurements from Steve Chaney who drew the plan. The committee asked that Natalie let Amanda know that we are leaning towards no changes to the plan. We can discuss and take a vote on this at our next meeting. Presentation before city council - Tentative date Sept 1, 2019 Lisa let us know that we will need precise drawings and materials for every garden detail including materials, budget and how everything will be constructed. We then need to bring this to the city for approval. We will also need to bring them our Adopt a Plot agreement. It would be best to put together a slide show. This will be done in a work session. Lisa suggested September 1 for our presentation. Sept 3 and 17 are council meetings. Arbors and benches can be installed later but we should have all the details prepared to show city council to get everything approved at once. Irregation Natalie asked if the city irrigator can help us with an irrigation plan. Lisa said he could but he needs to know what we want. We discussed this and are leaning towards having one double sided spigot for every 4 to 6 plots. We think one spigot for every 2 plots (as we have seen in other community gardens) may be too much. Natalie asked about those who may want drip irrigation like Amanda. We decided that we may have an area specially for those who want drip. We can discuss this next meeting. Short garden hoses We discussed that we would like to purchase the short hoses that attach to spigots for uniformity. We don’t want them too long or to have too many so they don’t become a trip hazard in the garden. Cistern water Initially we can use watering cans to carry rain water from the cistern but we would eventually like a hose connected that we can bring into the garden. Many may prefer this over city water. We need to be careful that the hose does not do any harm. We asked Lisa to make sure they order a cistern that has a hose connection. Watering Fruit Trees Natalie asked what we will use to water our grove of fruit trees. Lisa recommend letting the city install bubblers. Raised beds We decided that we would initially like the 6 beds closest to the sidewalk to be raised. These will be easiest for handicapped and the elderly to reach. Later we can add the 9 beds in the center of the garden if needed. We can add these in groups of 3. Compost/Storage Bin Areas Rich mentioned that we need to ensure the compost area is not an eyesore. We believe Amanda is working on a more precise drawing of this. Uma mentioned inviting Bill Utley from the garden club to consult about the compost areas. He teaches composting. She will send Bill’s contact info to Natalie. Rich has a friend who is also good at composting who he will invite to our next meeting. We had a lot of discussion about how to access the compost bins and wether we would allow trucks with tree trimming mulch to dump at the bins. We all agreed that only those with permission should be able to dump materials here and that it needed to be carefully monitored. We could build these compost areas before we install the community garden but they need to be approved by the city (hopefully in September) first. We need a specific budget for the compost/storage bins once we decide what the materials will be and what they should look like. We need to decide if the bins will be open from the community garden side or the fire station side or both. Compost area city uses behind large fence Rich mentioned that there is an area behind the big fence that the city uses for mulching that we can use to have trucks dump garden materials. We would all like to have a tour of this area later as the rest of us had not seen it. Arbors and benches Natalie asked Lisa how we should come up with a plan for our benches and arbors in the garden. Lisa suggested looking on the internet for photos of what we want and using that for our presentation for the city. Eagle Scout projects Uma has a friend who is looking for Eagle Scout projects. Her friend contacted Natalie who explained the projects they might be able to help with. We can’t have them do anything until we get city approval for our plans. The Eagle Scouts wanted to work over the summer but we won’t have approval until Sept so this may not work out. Building our Demo Garden Beds - Sept 7 at 9:00am - McPherson Park We decided to do this in September. Natalie will ask Harold Annis who has installed many school garden in Colleyville and Grapevine to help us. We would like to build one regular bed and one raised bed. At this event, we would like to bring some of our volunteer organizers so they can learn along with us how to supervise bed building on Big Dig Day. We plan to write step by step instructions for our organizers to use on Big Dig Day. We may also want to orange mark the garden and work on killing grass (see below) for garden prep on this day. Orange marking the garden Uma suggested we get orange spray paint and mark the exact layout of the garden. We did not decide when we should do this and will discuss it further at our next meeting. Killing grass to prepare for Big Dig We discussed many options including advice from Howard Garrett’s assistant. We liked Uma’s suggestion best which was to spray the area with strong vinegar. Natalie suggested adding some Dawn detergent and orange oil. We need to do this on a hot sunny day. We need final approval from the city for our plans before we begin. It was suggested we do this just after we get city approval with would be mid September. We should first do a small test section to see how this works. Fundraising Natalie mentioned that Whole Foods lets non profits have a day to raise money by giving a percentage of sales that day. It is reported that a charity can raise $2,000-$3,000 in one day. We are not sure if Whole Foods still does this since they have been purchased be Amazon. Natalie will check on this. Rich mentioned limiting sponsorship levels and especially for the bigger levels. We want to discuss this at our next meeting. Sheet with sponsorship details Linda will work on putting this sheet together. It will detail exactly what you get with each sponsorship level. It will clarify what inaugural donors get vs annual donors. We would like to vote on approving this sheet next meeting. Next Meeting Our next meeting will be on Thursday, July 11 at 8:30am. Lisa cannot make this meeting so she will ask Adrienne to sit in for her. Lost Quorum Rich left at 9:40a and we lost quorum Lisa left at 10:00a Linda, Uma and Natalie continued discussion At our next Meeting We discussed that we need to approve 1. Our budget. 2. Our materials. 3. Our design. 4. Our Big Dig Date and rain date. List of Volunteers We need to help Rich begin compiling a list of volunteers for the Big Dig Day. It was suggested we contact: -Tarrant County Master Gardeners, -Morman Church that is near McPherson Park (Their members are always looking for community projects), -The Colleyville Garden Club (Someone may want to attend and speak at one of their meetings), -The High School Ambassador programs. They need community service hours most in the beginning of the school year. (Natalie volunteered to contact them) -The Ecology teacher at GHS. Her students may be interested in helping. Adjourned The meeting was adjourned at 10:30am Minutes Submitted by Natalie Genco