The Giving Garden of Carrollton

Pounds of fresh produce

The Giving Garden of Carrollton, the first community garden within Carrollton, is proud to announce that it has surpassed its 10,000 lb. milestone!

Since its inception in 2010, we have donated over FIVE TONS of organic fruit, vegetables, and herbs to Christian Community Action and AUMC Food Share so that everyone in our community may enjoy good nutrition.

A big “Thank You” to our gardeners and everyone who has helped to support the garden over the years.

A special thanks to the Aldersgate United Methodist Church and it’s members for providing the land and resources which makes the garden possible.

This file lists major plant families and suggests methods of crop rotation. It also includes a table matrix showing plants that are good and/or bad companions. It is an excellent reference for selecting plant groupings in your bed.

plant-family-and-crop-rotation.pdf

Visit OneCreativeMommy WEB site.

(From HarvestToTable.com and OneCreativeMommy.com)

We had a very successful workday with about 90% of all the gardeners coming out to work for the betterment of the garden. We had two student volunteers and a wonderful crew of eight people sent from the North Texas Food Bank.  Laura Margadonna ordered and received a delivery of compost on Thursday so we were equipped to direct the volunteers to wheelbarrow loads to all the plots that were ready for compost to raise the level of their beds.

Willie Lane directed some of the volunteers to get the remaining guide wires installed on the sagging rabbit fencing. Willie also lopped branches that were hanging around the side and back of the shed and installed an indoor/outdoor thermometer in the shed.

Joe Grizzel mowed, Jill White weeded the herb bed and sprayed some community bed plants, TC and Carolyn worked the berry patch and helped the harvesters.

Thanks to Laura Margadonna for picking up amendments and placing them in the shed for all gardeners’ use. Now is the time to amend your beds to prepare them for plantings.

Texas Organic Research Center (TORC)

Donation Chart

The Giving Garden of Carrollton has donated over 2,000 pounds of fresh organic produce to Christian Community Action and the Aldersgate UMC in 2015.

We welcome you to come join in our efforts. Now interviewing applicants interested in adopting a plot for 2016. The yearly fee is $40 for a bed measuring 4′ x 20′.

Let your friends and neighbors know that plots are available for rent.

Today was Food Share for senior citizens in the community delivered by volunteers of Aldersgate United Methodist Church.  Thanks to Cindy Baxley for taking our 21 lb. harvest up to the church for distribution.

Pounds of fresh produce

The cucumbers and greens were beautiful.

And the tomatoes were abundant!

25.5 lbs

Saturday, March 28th we had a beautiful day for our end of month work day.  At one time there were 26 people working like busy bees in the garden.  We began by harvesting 25.5 lbs. of greens and cabbages for the Food Share program at Aldersgate Methodist Church. This was our first harvest of this year and you can see we had an abundance of greens  Can you imagine how thrilled those seniors were to get this organic produce?  And, some got deliveries from our smiling student volunteers.  It was a treat for all.  The student volunteers dug a lot of Bermuda and laid mulch in the aisles.

Thanks to Steve Barrett, the water was repaired and many gardeners took advantage of the beautiful day to get their beds planted for Spring.

The Giving Garden is still producing bountiful harvests in November.  Today we harvested 36 pounds of gorgeous greens, eggplant, cucumber, okra, green beans, butternut squash and peppers.  Gardeners should be picking greens throughout the winter, especially if the beds are covered with a frost protection cloth.

The garden is looking forward to the start of our fence project in early November.  The three foot fence will be buried to a depth of six inches and surround the entire garden.  Gardeners will enjoy spring gardening without the nibbling of our pesky rabbit neighbors.

Information will be posted soon about our annual Christmas party.  Enjoy the beautiful fall weather!

Fall is always a good time to garden in Texas.  At the Giving Garden, many of our gardeners have already planted their beds in fall vegetables.  Because of our mild weather, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, all types of greens and garlic produce most of the winter.

There are a few open beds available to new gardeners at this time.  Please contact one of the Board members on the link on this page to request an interview.  Applications can be downloaded from the links on this page (Application for Plot and Garden Application).

Come join the fun of gardening with like-minded folks, doing good for our community and harvesting the fruits of your labor.