raised beds | Community Garden Coalition

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.

One of the challenges of helping others be successful gardeners is providing garden plots that meet the needs of our community’s elderly and disabled. We also have gardens challenged by less than ideal soil. (That lovely topsoil you purchase at the nursery may well have been scraped off a lot before a church or other structure was built, leaving behind a layer of clay.) A cure for both of these issues is to install raised beds.

Some of the raised beds at the Unite4Health garden were starting to deteriorate after many years of good use. (They had been the domain of long-time gardener Jean Newcombe, who recently passed away in her 90s! If that isn’t an advertisement for the benefits of gardening, what is?) Garden leader Cheryl Jensen made a plan to refresh the beds last year. She asked the Community Garden Coalition to pay for the materials, while Robb, the husband of co-leader, Anne Jacobson, would do the work as a way to help the keep down the cost. To get extra heavy-duty wood for the new beds, he contacted his friend, Chris Cady, who owns a specialty lumber company. Together, they milled the lumber, and then Robb spent some time rebuilding these beds. Many thanks to Robb Jacobson for offering us the benefit of his talents! See photos below.

milling lumber into boards for raised beds

Robb Jacobson cuts a board to length at the Unite4Health garden

Robb Jacobson sits on the ground using a hammer while rebuilding a knee-high rasied bed wall

Robb Jacobson bends over as he finishes rebuilding a knee-high raised bed at Unite4Health garden

Newly rebuilt raised bed at Unite4Health garden filled with fresh soil and compost

In 2021, the CGC also funded new raised beds at the St. Joseph Street Garden, now run by LOVE, Columbia with Eric Lorenz as the garden leader, and at the Friendship Community Garden, powered by Dee Campbell Carter and her husband Gary Carter.

Eric Lorenz stands in front of a raised bed with leafy greens growing in it

Garden leaders and board members stand in front of a new raised bed at St. Joseph St. garden seeded for fall crops in 2021

Another new addition to the Friendship Garden in 2021 was a large new storage shed, purchased with money given during the CGC’s 2020 CoMO Gives fundraising drive. The garden leader, Dee Campbell Carter, says they have a young artist who is planning a mural for the side of the shed this spring!