RED BANK– The Red Bank Community Garden is growing into its second year and the community is looking forward to a jam-packed 2014 growing season full of educational and inspirational events at the Marion Street garden.
The community garden will kick off its growing season at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March 5, at the Red Bank Public Library, located at 84 W. Front St., with the first of many lectures and demonstrations. Master Gardener Carolyn Heuser will speak about “Vegetable Gardening with an Organic Twist.”
“We invite anyone and everyone who enjoys gardening to come,” said Annie Jones, chairwoman. “We hope to have a speaker once a month come and lecture on important and interesting topics as well as having live demonstrations at the garden.”
“In our first year, we had all of our 16 plots leased. It was a learning year for all of us, but we have tweaked the garden and perfected it,” Red Bank Councilwoman Cindy Burnham said.
“Our water system, that was developed and built by Kenton & Liz Sydell, along with Tony Slone, our garden engineer is just amazing and, due to the fact that last year’s gardeners enriched and amended our soil, we are hoping for bigger and better crops this year.”
The 16 plots, each of which is 4 feet by 15 feet long, are leased on a first-come, first-serve basis, to Red Bank residents at a cost of $25 a season. The garden provides water, compost, mulch, tools and community spirit.
Six gardeners are returning to their plots, so anyone interested should go to www.redbanknj.org web site, click on Parks & Recreation to print out a copy of the application and rules, or pick up an application at the parks and recreation department at Borough Hall, 90 Monmouth St.
The garden, located one block from Fair Haven on the east side of town.
The group is committed to creating another community garden at a site that is more centrally located, especially for apartment dwellers without yards or those with yards that are not conducive to gardening.
For more information about the Red Bank Community Garden at Marion Street, call Jones at 732-747-2017 or email tricksteraj@yahoo.com, or Burnham at 732-241-9532 or njcinnie@aol.com.
