GANG News 7.16.09

Welcome to this week's GANG News post!

Details of the past week's efforts, how to volunteer, and the current wishlist follow. Enjoy!

GANG Group Volunteer Hour 7.16.09
There were two special visitors to the garden for this week's volunteer hour - Christie and Marino. Marino, a brother of a Green Acres neighbor, is visiting from Spain where he is an organic farmer. Christie is a college roommate of Ann's and is a Agricultural Economics professor who has done work in Africa. What a wonderful pair to have in the garden!
Volunteers cut and lay carpet for the aisles, weeded the beds, treated the tomatoes with phosphate (too much nitrogen, not enough phosphate for tomatoes to flourish), watered the thirsty plants, and repaired squash borer damage (remove and eliminate borers, bandage plant with tin foil) on the squash plants.

Outside the Hour
On Friday morning (7/10) Tom and Ann met with Nicole Schonemann and Andrew Libby of the IU Office of Service Learning, along with Melissa Clark of SPEA to discuss as possible semester-long sustainabiity project with the GANG and a new 400-level class she will teach next spring.

On Friday (7/10) afternoon, Kevin and Tom met to look at tools to order for the GANG and to decide how to design the toolshed for them.

Why & How to Volunteer
We invite all neighbors to join us at the GANG. By volunteering you can earn shares of the gardens bounty; shares earned are based on volunteer hours. There is a weekly group volunteer hour Thursdays from 5:30pm-6:30pm, but you are welcome to volunteer anytime. There is volunteer log we use to track volunteer hours and what work was done during your time. The volunteer log (white binder) is located on Ann's porch, 134 N. Overhill.

GANG Wishlist
* help with weeding the beds; be careful not to distrub the small areas where the hay has been pulled back, these are the areas with new plants; put pulled weeds in the pile against the fence
* plastic blind slats (we will cut them up and use them to label plants in the beds)
* picnic table - materials for, and/or labor to create
* water plants for the pond
* ornamental plants for the areas around the pond and the front area of the garden
* vegetables and herb plants for the beds
* compost and other mulch materials
* buckets