Garden Name: Borah Community Garden
Garden Location: 6643 W. Cassia St (in the west
side of Borah Park, that is located at the corner of Cassia and
Aurora Drive, that in turn is located on the west side of Borah
High School.
Contact Person(s): Keith Mitchell, borahgarden@gmail.com
Mailing Address: Borah Neighborhood
Association
Type: Community Garden, operated by the
Neighborhood Association
Fees: Determined by NA
Hours Required?: Determined by NA
Additional Information:
This garden was started with a Mayor's Neighborhood Reinvestment
Grant of $30,611.00. The Department of Parks & Recreation
provided design and technical assistance at no cost to the NA. The
garden gets its water and electricity from the adjacent park site.
Our staff inspects the garden once a week for unsafe conditions,
weeds, and vandalism. The Department must approve all signs and
changes to any structures in the garden (sheds, shade structures,
etc.) before they are installed. The NA is responsible for all
maintenance, weed control, operation of the irrigation system,
administration of the plots, debris removal, safety, etc.
Spring Update (May 2012):
Thanks to Keith and his crew of volunteers, our water system is
reinstalled for the season and ready to go.
Many of the plots already have plants up, and if you are anxious
for a harvest (yes, harvest!) the chives in the raised bed are
ready. Both the stems and the blossoms are edible, but not the
stems of the blossoms (they get woody), so pull those out
before chopping your chives onto your spuds. One of our gardeners
will be able to enjoy a modest harvest of rhubarb very soon; maybe
later they will trade with the gardener who has strawberries
blooming now, and they can both have pie!. Rhubarb takes no effort
at all to grow, and can live for decades. I know of a plant in our
neighborhood that is at least 25 years old! To keep a plant that
happy, plant it where it will get enough water regularly, has room
to spread out (rhubarb can grow 3-4 feet high and across), and
upend half a bag or so of steer manure or compost on it every
couple or three years. To harvest, pull, don't cut, the stalks and
discard the leaves. Also pull the flowering stalks when they pop
up. Stop harvesting when smaller stalks start coming up.
Established plants will often send up a fresh batch of big stalks
again in the fall.
Look around the garden and you will discover other volunteers
have been at work over the fall, winter and spring. There are
sunflowers coming up hither and yon, the odd carrot or onion here
and there that didn't get harvested last fall, and quite a lot of
really beautiful lettuces scattered around. If you don't weed them
out, these self-sowing plants will be some of the very earliest
lettuces available, and, as a bonus, you will be selecting plants
that may grow on their own in future years too. Now that's my kind
of gardening!