Garden Pests and Pollinators Workshop

Posted on June 13, 2023 by Jenny

We’re so excited to be co-sponsoring a gardener education workshop this month with the Columbia Public Library! Clear your calendar for Saturday, June 24 and see the details below. No need to register and all gardeners and community members are welcome, teens and adults!

Garden Pests and Pollinators:
How to Manage for Both in Your Home and Community Garden

Saturday, June 24 at 2-3:30 p.m.
Columbia Public Library, Friends Room, 100 W. Broadway

Mid-Missouri gardeners are bedeviled by all kinds of pests, from tomato hornworms to Japanese beetles, throughout the growing season. The ongoing challenge is to fight back against these pests, while encouraging the presence of the bees, butterflies and moths who pollinate your plants! Joe Walls from the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture and Dana Morris from Central Methodist University will share their know-how at this presentation. Joe will share natural pest management tips for home and community gardeners. Dana, who has worked extensively with monarch butterfly recovery, will present on “Thinking Like a Bee: Planting and Planning for Habitat.”

Joe Walls received his master’s degree in entomology as well in plant pathology and environmental microbiology from Penn State University. During graduate school, he studied integrated pest and disease management for plant viruses and their insect vectors, with special focus on climate change. Since finishing his graduate studies he has worked at Happy Hollow Farm and currently works at Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture. He specializes in pest and disease management plans as well as farm systems maintenance and construction.

Dana Morris earned her B.S and M.S. in fisheries and wildlife sciences and a Ph.D. in biology from MU studying avian ecology. She worked for the Missouri Department of Conservation and the Department of Natural Resources in water quality and outreach education. She taught for 4 years in the School of Natural Resources at Mizzou, worked as a post-doc studying savannah ecology in Kenya and as a post-doc for the Missouri Ozark Forest Ecosystem Project before joining the faculty at Central Methodist University in Fayette, MO in 2012. Since 2014, she has been restoring an 86-acre university-owned nature sanctuary with native habitat to better support biodiversity, pollinators and an outdoor classroom. In her own garden, she grows just enough produce for her family and several families of wild animal neighbors.

This workshop is part of our series of gardener education workshops celebrating our 40th anniversary.

Learn About Caring for Your Garden Soil

Posted on April 23, 2023 by Jenny

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.

Small Space Gardening Workshop

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Jenny

This Saturday’s workshop at Friendship Community Garden will go ahead despite the weather! We hope you’ll bundle up against the chill and join us to learn about square-foot gardening and rain barrels!

A man leans down into a small garden bed with leafy greens, his hand touching some lettuce leaves

Saturday, April 22 at 12 p.m.
Friendship Community Garden
1707 Smiley Lane

Learn about square-foot gardening and DIY rain barrels at this demonstration event. Square-foot gardening is a popular method of growing an intensive vegetable garden in less space. It is also very water and resource-efficient. Visit a working square-foot garden and discuss how to fit in all your favorite veggies. Gary Carter of Friendship garden will also discuss how he sourced and installed the DIY rain barrels that help gardeners water there.

Participants will get a free space-saving heirloom tomato seedling!

This event is part of our celebrations of our 40th Anniversary! More events will be announced soon!

Workshops Update

Posted on April 3, 2023 by Jenny

It’s the 40th year for the Community Garden Coalition, and to celebrate we’re organizing some public workshops on various gardening topics all season long! Please note that as our plans have come into focus, our small space gardening workshop events have changed from their original dates. There will no longer be a workshop on April 8 or May 13 as was originally planned.

Instead, please join us to learn about small space gardening and DIY rain barrels on the following date:

Gardeners look over a small garden plot while holding a watering can

Small Space Gardening Workshop

Saturday, April 22 at 12 p.m.
Friendship Community Garden
1707 Smiley Lane

Learn about square-foot gardening and DIY rain barrels at this demonstration event.

Square-foot gardening is a popular method of growing an intensive vegetable garden in less space. It is also very water and resource-efficient. Visit a working square-foot garden and discuss how to fit in all your favorite veggies. Gary Carter of Friendship garden will also discuss how he sourced and installed the DIY rain barrels that help gardeners water there.

Participants will get a free space-saving heirloom tomato seedling!

Our earlier spring workshops focused on learning how to prune the fruit trees and elderberry bushes that make a nice addition on the margins of some of our community gardens. Thanks to our board member Mallary Lieber for leading those events!

Mallary and Cheryl stand with pruning tools at the Unite4Health garden

three people stand next to a ladder beneath a tree debating a pruning cut.

participants in an elderberry pruning workshop pose for a photo in the Kilgore's garden, bundled up against cold weather

workshop leader Mallary, dressed in a winter coat and hat, holds hand pruners to the bare branch of an elderberry shrub and smiles for the camera

We hope you’re able to get your garden ready and growing soon!

Low raised beds, some freshly built, are filled with fresh soil and compost next to a fence at Ridgeway school, while a mom and child stand to one side. Text on the photo reads "Ready for planting!"

several gardeners and leaders pose for the camera while holding packets of seeds, standing in the early spring garden at Ash St.

several people gather in the early spring at Friendship garden, dressed for cool weather

Elderberry Pruning Workshop Postponed for Rain

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Jenny

Update 4/2: Please note, our small space gardening workshops have been reformulated and will no longer take place on April 8 & May 13. Watch for more details about an April workshop soon!

Our series of workshops for our gardeners and other interested community members continues, but tomorrow’s event will be postponed! Here’s more information on that and our next event.

Elderberry Pruning Workshop
NEW DATE: Saturday, March 18, 2:30 p.m.
Kilgore’s Community Garden, 700 N. Providence Rd.
Because of the forecast for rain on Saturday, March 11, we’re moving to our rain date of March 18. Still free and open to all! 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. Led by Mallary Lieber of the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture and the Community Garden Coalition.

Small Space Gardening Workshops
Saturdays April 8 & May 13, 2:30 p.m.
Friendship Community Garden, 1707 Smiley Lane
Get tips and tricks on fitting all your favorite vegetables into a 4×4′ garden. Visit a working square-foot garden, practice planting with a square-foot grid, and strategize succession planting for the best harvest. Participants will receive Tom Thumb lettuce seeds at the April workshop and an heirloom tomato space-saving seedling at the May workshop.

Early March Update & Elderberry Workshop

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Jenny

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.

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

Posted on February 15, 2023 by kathyedoisy

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!

Posted on January 1, 2023 by Jenny

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

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Jenny

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!

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

Posted on December 26, 2022 by kathyedoisy

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!

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!