Salem Community Gardens

After a two week delay, our donation harvest program has begun!

How it works...

• Just email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it by Wednesday afternoon with your name, garden, and what you would like to donate - be as specific as you want to be - and volunteers will take it from there.
• Volunteers will harvest any produce you donate and deliver it to Harvest of Hope / Saint Joseph's Food Pantry in Salem.
• Harvesting happens on Wednesday evenings or Thursday mornings and delivery is around noon on Thursdays.
• You'll receive a weekly reminder, but you can schedule with us well in advance if you know you're going away.

And why do I need to use them?           

It's that time of year when the local critters emerge and eagerly forage through our gardens. Although more prevalent at Winter Island and Mack Park, here is some advice to help keep our furry and feathered friends at bay.

Birds
While birds add life, personality, and sometimes pest control to gardens, many of them find freshly sewn seeds, young transplants, and fresh berries and pea shoots irresistible. While the most effective defense against this uninvited foraging is a barrier, shiny or noisy objects are also effective at frightening birds away. Bird damage is not reported as a major problem at our gardens, however it’s best to be prepared before nature’s appetite strikes.

• Hang clanging aluminum pie plates or shiny pin wheels within your plot all season long to help frighten birds away.
• Protect young seedlings with row covers or cages of chicken wire. Row covers are widely available through garden centers and seed catalogs and protect young seedlings from other common pests and late frosts. Instructions for a simple and effective chicken wire cage are included in Mel Bartholomew’s The New Square Foot Gardening.
• Cover the trellis supporting your pea plants with bird netting until they are well established.

Groundhogs, squirrels, bunnies and pets
Our furry friends are often more interested in playing in freshly dug soil than damaging our crops. However, soiling our gardens, mowing down fresh seedlings, taking a single bite out of each fruit on a plant, or digging around the roots of young or established plants can cause significant issues, to say the least. Barriers are the only foolproof method to lock out these curious creatures, whatever their motive.

• Place row covers or chicken wire over bulbs and young seedlings. Look to fellow gardeners or the web for inspiration for systems using PVC, conduit pipes and netting to build simple and inexpensive protective structures that suit your plot.
• ‘The natural deterrent’: products derived from predator urine. Find these at your garden or farming center. Beware, the rotten smell may also deter humans.
• Dispose of snack foods and wrappers off site.
• Remember to close the exterior garden gate when leaving and report any holes in the perimeter to your garden captains.

Salem Community Gardens is managed and operated completely by volunteers. We are forever grateful for the work invested into the organization by you, the gardeners!

This week we are unveiling a new logbook at each garden to ensure everyone receives credit for their time worked toward the required two-hour volunteering time. Whether you work on your own time or join a work day, please remember to jot down your name, date, time worked and tasks completed.

And remember you can always contact your garden captains for info on the next work day or a list of tasks to complete on your own schedule. Thanks again for your hard work!