Carl Schulz Gardening Techniques, News and Updates

Mulch for your garden

The WCC will again be providing each gardener with one bale of mulch hay.  We should have a delivery within a few weeks if all goes as planned.  For those of you who are new to gardening or to the benefits of mulching, I’d like to relate my own introduction to the subject.  In the late 1960s, I picked up a book titled How to Have a Green Thumb without an Aching Back (1955) authored by Ruth Stout.  Another– Gardening Without Work:  For the Aging, the Busy, and the Indolent (1961),– solidified her reputation as “the mother of mulch”  and was among the dozen books she authored promoting the method.  Stout was born in 1884 and died at age 96 having spent many years practicing what she preached — a no-till method of gardening that today is recommended by many experts.  Stout’s writing is enormously entertaining, informative and practical.  She promoted a technique of deep mulching that is labor-saving, soil-improving, water-conserving and permanent, using any vegetable matter that rots!  But she was quite insistent that the very best mulching material anyone could use was spoiled hay.  (Lucky Us!)  She had her critics, of course.  As stated in an article about Stout’s methods in homestead.org, “Basic and boiled down to its essence, the Stout method is no till, no dig, no water, no weed, & no composting–but not no work!”

 Stout’s mulching method lends itself especially well to small garden plots such as we have in the WCC, eliminating the need for roto-tilling.  I noticed that several of Stout’s books have been reprinted and are available for purchase.   And of course, there are many more recently published books on the subject.  But I have a soft spot in my heart for this eccentric, opinionated lady who even in her 90s could be seen tossing sections of hay bales about her garden.

Submitted by:  Anne Kirschmann

2020-04-15 CAS3 Update: Another link to Ruth Stout’s mulching technique: https://www.goveganic.net/article182.html 

Carl Schulz News and Updates

New York Times article about community gardening features the COVID-19 guidelines that Hannah wrote

The New York Times interviewed Hannah about the guidelines she wrote for the community garden and the article they wrote was published – you can read it here.

Hannah noted “It’s incredible – I made the guidelines a public document for anyone to access through Google Drive – I’ve had people from all over the country contact me telling me they’ve used them to justify keeping their gardens open to their towns and municipalities… now, there is a group of us looking at how to help turn unused school gardens this year into community gardens – it’s crazy how things like this begin to spiral.

We can’t thank Makepeace enough for providing this space to us and for the space’s long history of growing food for its surrounding community. That’s a big deal, heavy and wonderful at the same time!”


Carl Schulz News and Updates

COVID-19 Guidelines for Safe Community Gardening

In light of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease outbreak and this new era of social distancing, Hannah has been working with many people from across the region to create a best practices set of guidelines for community gardening during the foreseeable future. She gathered input from public health officials, researchers, food systems experts and medical professionals. We are very proud to say that this document is currently being circulated widely throughout the northeast and is even making its way south and across the country.

Please review ‘COVID-19 Guidelines for Safe Community Gardening‘. It includes an outline and links to several key sources of the most up to date and legitimate information on the Coronavirus and COVID-19. These guidelines will be distributed throughout the garden along with simple graphic signs to make following best practices as easy as possible.

Please consider the following:

  1. We will keep the garden open for gardening during this time
  2. Do not come to the garden if you are feeling any symptoms of COVID-19
  3. Do not come to the garden if you are at high risk for serious complications due to contracting COVID-19. 
  4. If you are an “at risk” gardener, please coordinate with us so that we can cover spring tilling, planting, and cultivating in your plot.
  5. We need to follow very strict guidelines to keep everyone safe while gardening
  6. Please bring sanitation wipes and be prepared to wipe down anything you touch while in the garden including hoses, water spigots, and the Gardenway cart handle. 
  7. Do not assume anyone has wiped down these surfaces. DO assume they have been touched and need to be sanitized.
  8. Practice social distancing, maintaining a 6′ MINIMUM between you and other gardeners. 
  9. Do not hug or shake hands.
  10. Doap is one of the most effective means of sanitizing the virus. bring a ziplock bag, or other watertight container, full of soapy water and a washcloth as your own personal and mobile hand washing station.
  11. Bring sanitation wipes.
  12. Bring your own tools
  13. Remove all of your tools when you leave for the day
  14. Do not lend your tools to anyone else, it is very difficult to sanitize wooden handles.
  15. We will be removing ALL community shared tools for the time being.
  16. We have removed the lids from compost containers that are available to put garden debris in. do not move or touch the compost lids, just leave them where they are. 
  17. Do not think that wearing gloves will protect you or anyone else from the virus. review proper use of gloves protocols 
  18. We may institute a scheduling process to provide ‘at risk’ gardeners a chance to access the gardens and to increase our ability to maintain proper social distancing.
  19. Communication is key: please let us know if you are struggling to get to the garden,