Fence contractor coming back after Thanksgiving for more fence work
Move sensitive plants along the fence to pots
Pedestrian gate being installed on the Maspeth side
Need a chain and lock for the new gate – what is access like? Can we open it from both sides? This gate should be strictly used as the hydrant access gate.
Need to think of a better way to waitlist private plots.
Landed on becoming more involved is helpful, but the garden is so much more than private plot access. Can potentially provide little areas throughout the garden that people really desiring a private plot can maintain themselves. Also encourage, as always, to get heavily involve in community beds.
have historically documented involvement, but this can get tricky and “micro manage-y”
Question came up that what if they want to plant something in the community beds that’s personal to them? Need to run by Sam and Victoria – they are both open to planting community desired plants, but want to do so if it makes sense
talk with Sam and Victoria if you have a specific desired plant for the community bed for 2024
Dates
Open garden day – first Saturday of June
Summer party – June 15
Projects for 2024
Rat mitigation. Hire someone to help?
New furniture
Finish compost bins
Raised beds (smaller) throughout the garden. We have some excess wood from the tree guards that may be able to be used
Fix rain collection barrel next to stage
What equipment do we need that green thumb doesn’t provide?
We noted that the community bed cleanup went well, and the remaining plants are still growing, with peppers ripening.
We approved a $300 budget for the Oct. 29 Fall party.
We discussed rats, especially that:
The best way to drive out rats is to find and collapse their burrows continually and to try to make the garden less hospitable to new burrows. During the work day, we placed red flags where that needs to happen. Some burrows go around plant roots and must be addressed in the winter. Corey explained why other strategies, such as traps and poison, won’t be effective in the long term.
The compost bin needs to be rat-proofed, especially having its lids completed.
We approved $200 in rat-proofing materials (meshes, copper and/or foam fill, etc) so we can evaluate how well various options work and how well they fit within the garden.
Voted yes on $300 budget for food and drinks for the event
Still waiting to hear back on pumpkin donation from David for pumpkin painting.
Everyone loves the idea of a pie contest. We can include this on the second batch of flyers.
Travis will promote the times of the contests on IG.
Action Needed:
Alex is changing the flier to say 1-6pm and including the pie contest at 5pm – once we have this updated/printed Travis wanted to get the digital file to post on IG
Need people to hand out thank you cards and put up event flyers this week and next – send a list of donors to the team so we can do this
Need a firm list of volunteers for setup, tear down and a food run. Setup at 12:30, food runs the day of (make a list) and tear down after 6:00 pm. Have two volunteers for setup (Jeff and Alden)
Alden said his sister would be open to donating her time and performing at the event, although she is a solo artist and usually sings acoustic. Her IG is @dania_music_ .If this does not work Jeff may be able to DJ and set up a playlist that works.
If we have t-shirts left over do we want to sell those at the event?