October 26, 2017

Holmes Run Community Garden Advisory Board Meeting
October 26, 2017
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Attendees
Suzanne Bouchard, City of Alexandria
Jennifer Holland,  Chairperson
Barb Goodman
Notes

• Plot Renewal time - The deadline to submit paperwork to renew garden plot for the 2018 gardening season is November 30. There will be NO extensions. On December 1 plots will start being distributed to gardeners on the waiting list. The renewal process is slightly different this year, allowing for multiple payment types instead of just a check mailed to the city. You can submit your completed renewal application by email. After Suzanne has processed the application, you will be offered multiple payment options.
  • At the time of the meeting only 2 plot renewals had been received.
• Monitoring - The monitoring team reviewed plots in the garden in mid-October. Citations have been sent out to gardeners. Anyone can request a report from the city of the citations that were issued.
  • Monitoring and citations are not meant to be punitive and we hope you don’t feel that way. The community gardens are on city land and there are requirements for the look, safety, and limitation of invasive plants on all city property, including the gardens. Monitoring is also used to look for inactivity in the garden. We want to ensure that all gardeners are actively working the garden during the season and not leaving a plot vacant that can be rented to other interested gardeners.
  • Numerous citations over the season can be punitive and result in the future loss of the plot if you are not actively gardening and do not keep up your plot.
  • The monitors are looking for compliance with the regulations (attached to your application and resent every year as part of the garden registration process). Your garden does not have to be “perfect,” 100% weed free, or look like a showplace garden. Please do your best to keep on top of any invasive plants in your garden and not cultivate them.
  • We are attempting to build a community in the garden and keep all gardeners safe. The monitoring team is always looking for additional volunteers.
  • If you have any questions or concerns about what the monitors are looking for, please reach out to one of the monitors (Barb Goodman and Joan Branch) or Suzanne Bouchard. We do not want to discourage our gardeners!
  • There were 17 citations issued at Holmes Run Garden from the October monitoring session (~106 were issued at Chinquapin).
  • The final monitoring session of the season is December 2.
• Abandoned Plots - Abandoned plots are turned over to the advisory board if they cannot be re-rented. The advisory board is responsible for all aspects the plot until it can be re-rented, including keeping the plot in compliance with the rules and regulations.
• Volunteer Hours - The 2018 gardening season includes volunteer hours since the gardeners are taking on more maintenance of the garden to keep rental fees low. Please read the renewal notice and the previous meeting notes for additional information. There are a number of ways for gardeners to earn volunteer hours and not all include “heavy work” in the garden. Some types of activities that count towards volunteer hours include, but are not limited to:
  • join the advisory board (meet once a month)
  • become a volunteer coordinator and help coordinate events and monitor volunteer hours
  • join the monitoring team
  • help with the maintenance of the perimeter
  • help with the website
  • assist with events
• Volunteer Manager - We are looking for someone to take on the volunteer management role. This person will receive reports of garden volunteer hours, verify that nothing looks significantly out of line (e.g. someone saying they volunteered 100 hours covering an abandoned plot), and send a report to the city once a month of volunteer hours. We are working on an electronic form (or you can do this for us!) for gardeners to submit their hours so the commitment should be minimal. Please let us know if you are interested.
• Sense of Community - The community garden program in the city is meant to help build a sense of community within the city. We are trying to make the gardens more of a community, with the ultimate goal of becoming a self governing community, which will hopefully lower gardening fees.
• Wood Chips - We were able to get a delivery of wood chips from Care of Trees, thanks to the city arborist. We are planning to use these initial deliveries of wood chips to start preparing the new areas the gardeners are responsible for on the perimeter of the garden. When we need more, we make a request to Suzanne to ask the city arborist to arrange for another delivery.
• Community Work Days - We will be setting up some community work days, more likely in the spring, to help prepare the shared maintenance area of the garden. Several of us will be out over the month of November starting to prepare the area and we will attempt to notify you at least a week in advance (weather depending of course) of when we will be out there if you want to help or have any questions.
• Cost Recovery - The community gardens are part of tier 5 of the RCPA cost recovery schedule. According to this schedule the garden should be a 175% cost recovery activity. In 2017, the cost recovery was approximately 50%. With the addition of volunteer hours or payment of the higher fee, the cost recovery is expected to be about 100%. At full cost recovery, a garden plot rental would be over $300 for the season which would essentially shut the community garden program down. The formation of the advisory board and the hope to eventually move to self governance will remove the community garden from the city’s cost recovery schedule. In self governance, the garden would contract for services (e.g. water and trash) and not have direct payments to the city.
  

Next Meeting Agenda Items
Last Meeting of 2017 is November 18, 2017 at 10am at Misha’s Coffee Shop, 102 S Patrick St, Alexandria, VA 22314.
We will discuss the status of garden renewals, garden close-down for the season, and preparation of the annual report to the city.