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A Community Garden Will Be
Sprouting
in Buckingham in
2012
The Buckingham Township Civic Association is pleased to announce that we
are in the early stages of establishing a Community Garden. The garden,
which will be located in Holicong Park on York Road/Route 263, will
provide not only fresh, organic produce but also opportunities to get to
know your neighbors and to teach your kids about food and farming.
Buckingham residents will be able to rent their own plots, while students
from local schools will be given space to raise produce for area food
pantries.
The idea for a community garden started forming in BTCA President Jan
Tompkins’s mind sometime last spring but really took root over the summer.
Since then, many people have volunteered their time and knowledge to
support this project, including two master gardeners. The Penn State
Extension Service helped us analyze the soil.
The township is fully supportive of a Buckingham community garden in
Holicong Park. The supervisors are generously allowing us use of the land.
Township officials have met with us to plan and address concerns, and have
expressed excitement about working with us in the future.
Our Community Garden subcommittee met with Sandy Shaw of the Sandy Ridge
Community Garden at the Doylestown Mennonite Church and Danielle Odhner of
the Academy of the New Church (ANC) garden in Bryn Athyn. Both gardens
were established within the last year and the coordinators advised us on
what works … and what doesn’t. We were particularly inspired by the
beautiful fence and the raised beds done without wood frames at ANC and by
the Sandy Ridge Community Garden’s donation of over 700 pounds of produce
this summer. We will integrate their suggestions for volunteer
coordination, scheduling, and planning as we move forward.
The rectangular plot of our garden is edged by trees and lies between York
Road and the Holicong Park Pavilion. Right now, the land slopes and will
have to be graded. Scraggly grass mixed with weeds has started growing in
where a house once stood. But that is not what we see. As we draft and
edit blueprints, we can hardly contain our excitement because we are
visualizing the land covered with crops.
We expect our garden to be several thousand square feet, with space for
dozens of plots in the first year of operation. The beds themselves will
be raised, but without wooden frames. The ANC garden had wonderful raised
beds that were stationary but still more flexible than traditional raised
beds. We hope to build similar beds using thick mulch.
Other items incorporated into our plan include birdhouses, houses for
Mason Bees (which don’t sting), a deer fence, native plants around the
perimeter to attract pollinators, water access from the Holicong Park
pavilion, solar-powered lighting, and a tool shed. A lovely pear tree will
hopefully shelter picnic tables in the future.
As you can see, we have done a lot of dreaming, followed by a lot of
coordination and planning, but there is still much to be done. The soil
needs improvement—soil in this area is notoriously poor for gardening.
Most of all, however, we will need YOUR help. (If only volunteers sprouted
like weeds!) We will need your assistance in fundraising, constructing,
planting, watering, and harvesting.
We are currently seeking people who would like to become part of
committees that will organize participants, maintain the garden,
coordinate donations, manage events, etc. If you would like to help, please e-mail us at
info@buckinghampacivic.org
or leave a message at (215) 345-5355. Also, keep an eye open for news
about renting plots come growing season—they are first come, first served.
The BTCA board members are proud of this undertaking. Our organization’s
bylaws state that we exist in part to preserve and improve Buckingham
Township as an agricultural community and to educate the citizens in both
old and advanced methods of horticulture and agriculture. Our garden
will surely do all that—and more. This project will help make Buckingham
an even better place to live and raise your family. We will work to
involve the whole community, including our youth. And, what could be more
satisfying than to grow fresh produce with our own hands for hungry
neighbors who cannot afford to buy their own?
We look forward to working with the Buckingham community as we make this
garden a reality.
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