[Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens

[Mike McGrath]

Warning: Hoop houses are highly addictive; once you take your first puff, 
you won't be able to quit.
    (They are GREAT!)
                                            ---McG
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Conrad" <fred.conrad at acfb.org>
To: <yarrow at sfo.com>; "KBR" <k.br at verizon.net>; 
<community_garden at list.communitygarden.org>
Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 8:05 AM
Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens


> The Hartnett Community Garden has one gardener with five plots.  One of
> the plots (8x12) is covered with a hoop house that is alternately
> plastic in the winter and remay in the summer.  It seems to do a great
> job to extend crop seasons for them.  The structure is just about six
> feet tall and does not cast significant shade on the other plots, with
> four foot grass pathways between.  I've been tempted to replicate.
>
> fgc
>
> Fred Conrad
> Community Garden Coordinator
> Atlanta Community Food Bank
> 732 Joseph E Lowery Blvd, NW, Atlanta, GA 30318
> ph: 678.553.5932 fx: 678.553.5933
> fred.conrad at acfb.org    <http://www.acfb.org>
> Our mission is to fight hunger by engaging, educating and empowering our
> community.
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org
> [mailto:community_garden-bounces at list.communitygarden.org] On Behalf Of
> yarrow at sfo.com
> Sent: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 1:01 AM
> To: KBR; community_garden at list.communitygarden.org
> Subject: Re: [Community_garden] Shade Structures in Community Gardens
>
> As a community structure, or in individual gardens?
>
> One of the gardeners at my community garden has a plot in the center of
> the hot sunny area, and he has chosen to grow grapevines that are now so
> rampant that, underneath the vines, his garden is a secluded island of
> shade. His garden is so interesting, with blackberry vines winding among
> the grapes, pansies growing 2-3 ft. high to reach some light, and other
> edibles tucked into every possible space as well as garden art, that no
> one complains about any shade cast on their plots, though I think only
> the path gets significant shade. The vines are supported by a series of
> arbors.
>
> Our other shade structure is the stone pines at one corner of the
> garden. Someday they'll come down (one fell down on its own last year),
> but that's where we put the sign-in table on work days, and where we do
> things like shelling fava beans on work days when it's too hot to be out
> in the sun.
>
> I've seen shade structures in a few other gardens, mostly small areas
> for eating or teaching. Usually no more elaborate than a slat-roofed
> open structure.
>
> If it were up to me, I'd plant a few fast-growing, drought-tolerant
> native trees/shrubs along one edge of the community garden to provide
> shade and also to feed the birds so that they don't have to rely so much
> on what's in the gardens. Here in California, my top choices would be
> elderberry (for the flowers and berries) and coyote brush (for the
> insects it supports, and because the shrubs can be sculpted into a small
> shade structure). OK, if it were really up to me, I'd go all out and
> plant a multispecies hedgerow of 5 or 10 native shrubs.
>
> At 8:58 PM -0700 7/21/08, KBR wrote:
>>Does anyone have any experience with community gardens installing shade
>
>>structures in their gardens? I'd like to hear the pros and cons.
>>
>>Kate, Wisconsin"If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope
> for it."
>
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