Community garden continues to grow

Linda Hull dreams of having a Better Homes and Garden garden.

But until she moves into the new home she and her husband want to purchase, she isn't going to make any more improvements to her rental yard.

Instead, she indulged her love of trying new plants by planting flowers and herbs on someone else's property.

Wednesday, she puttered around her makeshift flower and herb garden at the Carson City Community Garden, watering marigolds and petunias, cilantro and mint.

Around her 4-foot by 6-foot plot, other small plots are bursting with the green of flourishing squash, corn, beans, zucchini, cucumber, peppers and tomatoes.

"This is beauty," she said. "I love gardening. I love meeting with other people.

"If you can do this, you can grow anything."

Around 20 plots at the garden on the east end of Lone Mountain Cemetery are sporting produce and flowers, and gardeners only started planting the first week of June.

Alice Bloyd and her gardening partner and sister, Audrey Kangas, are already up to their proverbial ears in squash. They've harvested from their squash plant four times, which makes Bloyd wonder what was put in the soil to help the garden grow so well. Bloyd said she and her sister have a great plot and they enjoy working with the gardening mentors to help their crop thrive in its small space.

"It's very pleasurable," Bloyd said. "I'm glad we signed up. I wish it was a bigger spot so we could grow a lot more good stuff."

Not only is produce growing, but friendships are coming along as well at the garden where around 20 gardeners filter in and out, trading gardening tips while getting to know each other.

"If you say you can't grow anything in Carson City, you haven't met the right people to teach you," Hull said. "This is a place to share ideas, enjoy each others company and get to know people in the community."

This is the garden's trial year, and each of the gardeners paid $5 for a plot at the garden, a cooperative effort of the University of Nevada, Reno, Cooperative Extension, the Carson City Senior Center and the Parks and Recreation Department. The garden sits under a power line easement and depending on community interest, it could eventually fill the entire, skinny quarter-mile slot under the lines.

Community members and businesses have donated items to the garden, from mulch to hoses, a bench to a storage locker.

INFORMATION

For information on the community garden, call JoAnne Skelly at 887-2252.