Category Archives: news

CGC Gardens Get a BIG Boost From ForColumbia Volunteers!

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April 27th was a great day for two of the gardens that operate under the Community Garden Coalition (CGC) umbrella! ForColumbia, a volunteer service group organized by several of Mid-Missouri’s Christian churches under the leadership of Shelly Mayer (The Crossing), showed up in big numbers at the Windsor Street Montessori School and Unite4Health Community Garden to get things done! 

Windsor Street Montessori needed the grounds cleaned up and made more child-friendly, while Unite4Health, a city-owned garden, desperately needed deer fencing. The deer fencing materials were purchased with grants to the CGC from the Veterans United Foundation and Walmart, along with additional funds from ForColumbia. Installing the deer fencing took months of preparation because the garden sits on top of the old Nowell’s grocery store parking lot! Two incredible volunteers from ForColumbia, Tim Leibovich and J.P. Watson made it happen against all odds. What a wonderful organization that benefits so many people and non-profits around Columbia!

Volunteers clear vegetation and move a pile of sand in front of the Windsor Street Montessori school.
ForColumbia volunteers at Windsor Street Montessori School.
Many volunteers from ForColumbia are putting up a tall fence of plastic netting at Unite4Health Community Garden.
Several volunteers from ForColumbia are helping put up a tall fence of plastic netting to prevent deer from getting into Unite4Health garden.
ForColumbia volunteers installing deer fencing at Unite4Health Community Garden. 

Al-Pint Fundraiser

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Come raise a pint in support of the Community Garden Coalition!

On Friday, April 12 from 5-7pm join Alpine Shop (1102 E. Broadway) for an Al-Pint Fundraiser Night. A donation of $10 will get you a novelty pint cup and two complimentary pours of local beer. All profits go directly to support the Community Garden Coalition and their mission to feed and flower our Columbia community.

Thanks so much to Alpine Shop for their support! We hope to see you there!

Photo of various Alpine Shop glasses full of beer along with the text: Al-Pint Night, April 12, 5-7pm, supporting Community Garden Coalition

Community Gardening Gets Started for 2024

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With Saturday’s meeting of garden leaders, the spring season is truly underway at community gardens. Here are a few things to know!

If you were a community gardener at one of our member gardens last year, please take a minute to confirm with your garden leader whether you will garden again this year. We have heard from many new gardeners seeking plots and some gardens are already full!

If you are planning a garden this year:

  • Talk to your garden leader if you want seeds, row cover or hoops — all three are available through the CGC. (You make a donation here to offset our costs if you’re able.) This year, the CGC will not distribute garden plants.
  • Water is on already at some gardens, but not all yet. Please ask your GL for information.
  • Please have someone in your household fill out the Annual Household Info form.

If you’re a garden leader or helping out at your garden, please see our Resources for Garden Leaders page for information shared at our meeting today, the annual reporting form for group/youth gardens, and more.

Get More Involved This Year — Volunteer!

Please remember that all garden leaders and CGC board members are volunteers! We appreciate everyone’s effort to keep the gardens running! If you have time to volunteer a little more at your garden, contact your garden leader; there are usually lots of tasks to go around.

Or, maybe you’d be interested in helping out on our board! We have some veteran members stepping down; and we could use some fresh faces to help us continue this work. Please contact us for more information!

What does your community garden mean to you? "I feel part of a great community of gardeners. I learn from them, enjoy their company."

Giving Thanks for Another Gardening Season

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A tall sunflower plant blooms against the sky; a garden and neighboring house are visible around and behind it.As we mark the end of another gardening season, many of us are pausing to give thanks and celebrate seasonal bounty.

As a community gardener, I am grateful for the continued generosity of the landowner of my garden, my garden leader who shares so much of her time to keep the garden running, and my fellow gardeners who help keep it maintained through the season. And I’m grateful that the Community Garden Coalition organization has backed my garden with supplies, insurance, water, compost, straw and other support.

CGC board members pose together during an event at a community gardenAs a longtime CGC board member, I want to express my thanks more broadly to my fellow board members and all the community garden leaders and gardeners out there working to keep these community spaces vibrant and productive. And, of course, I’m thankful to all our supporters out there who have donated money, time or other resources!

This was our 40th year as an organization! We thank you for being a part of that, and we hope you’re planning for a great garden next year.

Learn About Caring for Your Garden Soil

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The next event in our 40th anniversary workshop series is brought to us by MU Extension and taking place at the Columbia Public Library.

A person's hand is held just above some garden soil and holding some soil. Green leaves are just behind the hand.

Soil and Nutrient Management in the Garden
Monday, May 1 at 6 p.m.
Columbia Public Library, 100 W. Broadway
Please register with MU Extension

This program provides education to the local gardeners about soil and nutrient management in their gardens. The speaker will talk about function and composition of soil, and soil organic matter. The standard procedure for soil sampling will be discussed in the meeting. There will be discussion about essential plant nutrients, soil test report interpretation and fertilizer application.

Interested participants need to register online or call to Boone County Extension Center at (573) 445-9792.

Early March Update & Elderberry Workshop

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Update: Our rain date for the Elderberry Pruning Workshop will be Saturday, March 18!

Kicking off the gardening season, this year, the Community Garden Coalition held our first in-person garden leaders meeting in three years last month! It was great to see everyone in person again! If you’re a leader of a neighborhood OR a school garden who missed out, we can’t offer you any of the tasty meal catered by Beet Box, BUT, we do have posted the packet of information shared at the meeting. Be sure to check it out on our Resources for Garden Leaders page if you want to know more about how to get resources or funding for your garden this year.

We have also started a series of workshops for our gardeners and other interested community members in celebration of our 40th anniversary. The workshops will take place throughout the 2023 growing season at various sites. On February 18, we held our first event, a fruit tree pruning workshop led by Mallary Lieber of the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture and the Community Garden Coalition.

a person standing on a ladder in an apple tree points at a branch while another person holds a ladder and other participants look on.
workshop leader Mallary demonstrates the angle of a pruning cut with her hand on a small branch.
three people stand next to a ladder beneath a tree debating a pruning cut.

Our next event is an Elderberry Pruning Workshop with Mallary THIS SATURDAY, March 11 at 2:30 p.m. at Kilgore’s Community Garden, 700 N. Providence Rd. Participants will learn how to prune elderberries, a wonderful native fruiting plant, and go home with a cutting along with instructions about how and where to plant.

We’ll share more details soon about other opportunities on topics like straw bale gardening, small space gardens, kids in the garden, pests, encouraging pollinators & native plants!

We’re also hard at work on a new shed project at the Claudell garden and getting ready to distribute seeds and cool season plants to member gardens. Stay tuned!

Off to a Great Start for Our 40th Year

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This year is the 40th anniversary of the Community Garden Coalition, and we are off to a great start due to some very successful year-end fundraising!

We exceeded our goal of $6,000 through CoMoGives and received corporate gifts from two local Walmarts totalling $2,750 along with a $500 gift from UScellular. But the most surprising donation happened in early December when we were contacted by Jim Robertson, the chair of the Reality House Programs board of directors. 

Reality House operated as a local, non-profit for 50 years offering a community-based alternative to incarceration. Unfortunately it lost the state funding it relied on two years ago and had to shut down. As a last gift to the Columbia community the board of directors decided the best way to disburse their remaining funds was to donate to three local, non-profits that they felt had supported their clientele over the years. The Community Garden Coalition was one of the lucky recipients, and we were given a $10,000 donation!!

Needless to say, we can help a lot of people with such a generous gift! While we are grateful for everyone’s support, we want to especially thank the Reality House Programs board of directors:

  • Jim Robertson
  • Rusty Antell
  • Frank Aten
  • Carroll Highbarger
  • Bob Perry
  • Jim Ritter
  • Matt Woods

THANK YOU for Showing Your Support!

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Graphic saying "Thank You!!!! December Donors Your support will help us in our 40th year of community gardening!" and featuring a photo of several volunteers posed at a garden and smiling for the camera

We are thrilled to report that the Coalition has received over $6,000 in donations this year through our CoMoGives campaign!!! We also received some other donations in December, and we’re so grateful to all our donors!

These gifts mean A LOT to our small, all-volunteer organization! We are so happy to have community support and enthusiasm for our mission as we move into our 40th year as an organization! (That’s right, the CGC got its start in 1983!)

Of course, if you meant to donate and missed the CoMoGives deadline, please know that you can donate anytime via our PayPal donations portal.

We wish all of our gardeners, volunteers and supporters a Happy New Year. We hope you can spend this winter planning your best garden ever!

Last Chance to Give Through CoMoGives

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We have reached the final few days of the CoMoGives local giving campaign, a truly inspired homegrown effort to support all kinds of nonprofit groups in Mid-Missouri. If you have the means to donate this year, we hope you’ll hop over to the CoMoGives site and give a gift to the Community Garden Coalition or another charity that’s close to your heart.

We’re thrilled with the support we’ve seen so far for community gardening as we get ready for our fortieth year! (That’s right, the CGC has been around since 1983!) We’re 2/3 of the way to our goal of raising $6,000 through CoMoGives this year.

As a supporter, you know we’re an all-volunteer group, run by a very small board and a hard-working set of garden leaders. In 2022, we supported over a dozen gardens used by hundreds of gardeners. When we asked our gardeners to tell us what community gardening means to them this year, we heard some inspiring words indeed!

graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? It means a lot because I can grow my own food. I saved a lot on vegetables growing my own."
graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? Time in the sun and hands in the dirt keep me grounded and sane during the summer."
graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? A space to dream and go be outdoors for a bit."
graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? I am really thankful for it, and it got me to garden for the first time. I learned a lot, and want to continue doing it. It is great."
graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? I feel part of a great community of gardeners. I learn from them, share with them, enjoy their company."
graphic tile with botanical ornaments, the CGC logo and "What Does Your Community Garden Mean to You? We stock our pantry with the bounty of the garden."

The Garden Coalition depends on the continued generosity of supporters like you to continue serving these gardens. If you have already given, thank you! If you have not given and have the means, please consider a gift through CoMoGives by midnight this Saturday, December 31.

Donate to CoMoGives!

Thank you so much for your support and interest in our mission! Here’s to a happy New Year 2023 and more great gardens as the CGC turns 40!

More Garden Plots at Unite4Health

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Unite4Health garden bed rehabilitation makes room for more gardeners!

As we look forward and prepare for another season of community gardens, we’re looking back at what was accomplished this year. Thanks to the efforts of one of our garden leaders at Unite4Health garden, Cheryl Jensen, there will be additional garden spots available next spring!

Before and after bed rehabilitation at Unite4Health garden in November, 2022

Cheryl’s tireless efforts, along with the help of Anne Jacobson, have really turned that garden into a little paradise for their gardeners! Cheryl had help from our favorite CCUA employee (and our newest board member) Mallary Lieber, and yours truly’s husband, Matt Knowlton, who loaded and delivered some primo compost for these beds. Then, visiting volunteers from AmeriCorps met with Cheryl to do the rehab!

Cheryl with some of her fall crops
Left, Mallary loading compost stored for us by CCUA; right, Matt unloading compost at U4H
The AmeriCorps crew, consisting of young volunteers from all over the U.S.

Another example of the lovely synergy that exists within our community and beyond!

As we wrap up our 39th year, the Community Garden Coalition is participating in the CoMoGives local giving campaign! Please consider a making a donation to support next year’s gardens through CoMoGives! You can also give directly through PayPal or snail mail at P.O. Box 7051, Columbia, MO, 65205.

Donate via CoMoGives through December 31!