Tuesday, September 13, 2016

First work party of the school year!

Hello fellow gardeners and volunteers! We will be having a work party this Saturday, September 17th at Nellie Muir School Garden. We will be weeding and bringing the garden back up to shape from 10 - 12. Please bring gloves, water and a tool for weeding (shovel, trowel, rake, etc...). See you there!

Friday, April 29, 2016

We thank you MacLaren!

This year we asked Maclaren Youth Correctional Facility if they would grow some starts for us. We saw this as an opportunity for community building and restorative justice. Our gardens are looking great already thanks to all of your hard work.

Thank you MacLaren for the amazing plant starts and collaboration!

Just a portion of what was donated. 

"Freedom like a Shopping Cart"

Round two of the mini-shopping cart!

Saturday, March 12, 2016

The idea behind the name...

The idea for Planting Communities comes from the idea of plant communities in nature. According to Cal Poly Land, “A plant community is a recognizable and complex assemblage of plant species which interact with each other as well as with the elements of their environment and is distinct from adjacent assemblages. A plant community is not a static entity: rather it may vary in appearance and species composition from location to location and also over time.” I see our organization as creating and reacting to the local community in which we all inhabit.
— Ian Niktab, co-founder of Planting Communities

We got the ODE Farm to School Grant!!!

Holy mole! We received the Oregon Department of Education Farm to School grant! This has been our biggest and largest grant yet. With this we will be able to take our non-profit to the next level and extend our reach to a larger range of people.

We have Chuck Ransom, the Woodburn School District Superintendent to thank for his letter of support. We also owe a HUGE thank you to Laura for consolidating our notes, wish list and thoughts. Without her amazing work we think this grant would have been much more difficult. So, THANK YOU Laura for you hard work.

Finally, our amazing team did an incredible job pulling the information together to get this project done. Now the real work begins. Stay tuned for work parties and other information regarding our projects and work.

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

NAO Members!

We are glad to announce that we have taken the next step to become official Nonprofit Associations of Oregon members!

We took a lot of training from them through a Rural Development program. With their help and inspiration Planting Communities became a reality. Now after a few successful years we are glad to become official members with them. We look forward to keep learning from them!

If you run a nonprofit in Oregon and/or are looking to start one check them out at:
https://www.nonprofitoregon.org/

Stay tuned for more exciting news prior to the growing season.

Thursday, February 18, 2016

It's here!!!

Our website is up am running! Be kind we are still working on it. However, enjoy all the good pictures, posts, and various pages about our work.

Plantingcommunities.org

Check it out!

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Winter activities

February is almost here, that means starting seeds indoors. In the mean time there are several other things you can do in the garden to keep active and warm.

Rubber boots/mud boots - check
gloves - check
warm jacket - check
cup of warm tea or coffee - check

1. build a cold frame (using straw bales and old windows or more permanent  structure from upcycled wood and old windows). This will serve as a place to harden off the starts you have sown in February.

2. Build a compost bin. Pallets make the best design, or you neighbors old fence boards. My recommendation is to also put a cover and doors on it. Leave the cover off or open May - November then close it in the winter months. In my opinion this ensures the right amount of moisture to keep the microbes and invertebrates happy in your bin. I will post pictures soon of ones we have with PC.

3. If you have a compost bin, find a cold sunny day to go out and turn it. This is a great way to get some winter vitamin D, envision your garden space and aerate your compost bin. put the new on the bottom and the old on the top.

4. Start some salad greens and herbs indoors in a sunny window.

That's all I can think of for now.

Happy gardening!

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Website?

What a better thing to do on a winter day than spend time with a lovely team and work on website! Planting Communities just keeps on growing...