Iowa State University Community Garden Plots

Type: Program

Status: Ongoing

Source File: http://www.agron.iastate.edu/studentfarm/gardenplots.html

Description:

Do you live in an apartment or a house where you just don't have the space or the light you need to garden successfully? The ISU Student Organic Farm can help! Community Garden Plots at the ISU farm give you the opportunity to unleash your green thumb and it allows the farm to reach out to the community and enlist volunteers for farm projects. Contact us now to reserve a plot for the 2007 season.

When you sign up for a community plot, you agree to volunteer at the farm for 10 hrs over the course of the spring and summer and, in return, you get a 20'x15' plot. Dues are $25 to help pay for a fence and/or tilling of community plots. Policies concerning community plotters and their commitment to the farm have been changing over the last several years. Come to our meetings and tell us what you think.

Community plotters can start fulfilling their service hours as soon as work at the farm starts in the spring. The farm manager(s) typically holds "workdays" on Thursday evenings from 5-7pm and sometimes on weekends. Volunteers are notified of coming workdays via the email listserve and they are encouraged to show up and help with work that the farm manager has lined up (email us to get on the SOFarm listserve). It's best to get your hours in early in the season when there is a big need for extra hands to get everything planted and keep the early summer weeds at bay. You'll find that being a community plot gardener will give you great opportunities to learn through your own experience, interactions with neighboring plotters (the tomatoes always seem a little bigger in the next plot over . . .) and fulfillment of your service hours.