End of the Season Update?

There is no such thing as an "end of the season" at Campbell Community Garden! We are growing year round!

The last update to this website was in late August, not because we haven't had anything to report, but because we have been busy harvesting and planning/planting for winter and spring. Over the next few weeks we will be making updates to the site, including a new page about the Campbell Garden Harvest Sharing Program (we have donated over 800 pounds of veggies this year), and updated info on garden sponsors and supporters, and we will open registration for garden plots for the 2013 growing season.


Campbell Community Garden, October 2012



Growing like crazy!

The Campbell Community Garden is in full veggie production now! We are busy harvesting as well as planning for our fall and winter gardens.

Campbell Community Garden Harvest Sharing beds; our herb bed is in front, with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant behind; out of view are cucumbers, squash, leeks, beans, and more!

The Campbell Garden Harvest Sharing Program has been great for our gardeners who are on vacation or otherwise not able to harvest their veggies. Between vacationing gardeners and our dedicated donation gardens, we are donating 60 pounds of veggies a week.

Produce donated on August 20th includes summer squash, cucumbers, dill, thyme, basil, parsley, leeks, eggplant, a few tomatoes and peppers, kale & chard.

It is amazing how quickly the summer squash and cucumbers grow!  What to do with out of control zucchini? See the video from Mavis at  One Hundred Dollars a Month:


As soon as it is time to rip out the squash and cucumber plants, we will have new things to plant in their places. We intend to grow year round in the Campbell Garden.

Seedlings of kale, chard, cabbage and basil

Improve your garden and help raise funds for Campbell Garden

Dean Innovations Finer Outdoor Living is helping Campbell Community Garden raise money to build our shed and purchase garden tools  by donating one dollar for every yard of Premium Soil Blend sold in August (up to $500!).

Call Dean Innovations today at 503-281-1637 and and mention the
GIVE BACK Special to help Campbell Community Garden reach our goal. Here is a link with more information, and a thermometer that shows our fundraising progress: Dean Innovations Community Giveback.

Premium Portland Soil Blend

Premium Portland Soil Blend is well suited for mixing 50/50 into your existing garden soils to create beautiful, nutritious, well drained planting berms or vegetable beds. You will also get excellent results using this for raised beds, new turf, and plant hole amendments for shrubs and trees.

While one might not think of starting a new garden bed in August, it is actually a perfect time to do so:

• Fall and winter maturing vegetables like kale, lettuce, and broccoli need to be planted now.
• Garlic & onions for next summers harvest need to be planted in October
• Building and improving shrub and perennial beds now will mean they are ready for fall planting.
• $1 of every yard of Premium Soil Blend will go to Campbell Community Garden!

So, if you have considered adding more growing space in your yard, maybe for a bigger patch of tomatoes next year, or for more shrubs for privacy, now is the time to do it!

First Harvest Donation of the 2012 Growing Season

We delivered our first produce donation today! It was a small one, just 7.3 pounds, but everything looked delicious!

Rainbow radish, Stupice tomato, Magda squash, and Zucchini (clockwise)

We donated rainbow radishes, Magda summer squash, basil, and 4 little tomatoes from our harvest sharing plots. Gardeners contributed  lettuce, kale, red radishes, and green zucchini from their own plots.

A big thanks to the Campbell Community Garden donation plot sponsors, Tempus Dictum Inc. and Badbeard Microroastery for their cash sponsorship of the plots. And thanks to Hansen Family Farm for their donation of tomato and eggplant plants.

Tuscan kale, green leaf lettuce, and Red Russian kale (clockwise)

Thanks to the gardeners who shared produce, and for our garden volunteers who helped last night with planting basil, parsley, and radish, bean, and beet seeds.

Training Tomato Plants

Our tomato plants have really appreciated the recent warm weather and are starting to really grow and flower, a few even have small fruit. Tomatoes left to grow on their own tend to vine and sprawl all over the ground. Taking the time to train them to grow up onto a structure of some kind will reward us with healthier plants with fruit that can be easier to pick. Campbell Gardeners are employing several different methods of training their plants.

Traditional style tomato cages in yellow and red complement the marigolds for a pretty combination...imagine red ripe fruit in this colorful  mix!

One of our Square Foot Gardeners is trellising their tomatoes on netting and PVC pipe.

This gardener decided to try out a combination of metal T-posts and wire after figuring out the cost to outfit his large number of plants with traditional cages...I think we could name his system a "Tomato Corral"

This gardener isn't growing tomatoes sideways, it just looks that way. They are staking their plants to wood stakes and are using old pantyhose and pipe cleaners to keep them in line.

This gardener is using stakes and twine to make a cross between a cage and a trellis.

This gardener found a very attractive solution to tomato cages that want to topple over. They enclosed the cages in bamboo tee pees.

For detailed instructions on how to prune and train tomato plants, see the two videos below.
Here is a video from the University of Main Extension Service that show how to stake indeterminate tomatoes:



Here is a link  from Fine Gardening Magazine on pruning and trellising tomatoes.

Thank You!

The grand opening tomato planting party was a success! No rain, a little sun, and 28 tomato plants, plus cucumber, watermelon, and summer squash all planted in our harvest donation beds.

The grand opening was well attended, and it didn't rain!

THANK YOU to all of the gardenrs who spent time getting Campbell Community Garden ready for it's public debut. It is very rewardign to see how much our garden has grown since we started planting on June 1st.

THANK YOU to all of our garden sponsors, donors, and supporters. Your help made the building of the garden possible. Your contributions have gone far to improve our neighborhood and community.

Garden supporters help plant tomatoes. L-R: Milwaukie City Manager, Bill Monahan; CCG Gardener, Judy Kiepke; North Clackamas School District Assistant Supperintendant, Ron Stewart; Landscape East & West's, Cindy Capparelli; and Milwaukie Community Services Director, JoAnn Herrigel.

Grand Opening of Campbell Community Garden

Grand Tomato Planting Party

Friday June 22nd, 4:00pm

Rather than a traditional ground breaking ceremony in the April rain, we decided to celebrate the opening of Campbell Community Garden with a Tomato Planting Party. Please join us in the garden for tours, refreshments, and help us get our produce donation program going by planting a tomato plant in one of our community plots.

Parking is available in the Campbell Elementary parking lot at 11326 SE 47th Avenue, Milwaukie 97222. The garden is located at the upper NE corner of the school grounds.

Thank you to Hansen Family Farm for donating tomato plants for our Grand Tomato Planting Party!

Garden Construction Nearly Complete!

Once all of our paths are coverd with cardboard and wood chips, we can say we are done with the construction phase of Campbell Community Garden. As long as we get our planned wood chip delivery tomorrow, we will be done with construction by the end of the weekend!

Work days are planned for Thursday June 14th from 3:30 to 7pm and Saturday from 10am to Noon, our grand opening celebration will be at 4pm on Friday June 22nd.

Campbell Community Garden, June 12, 2012

Time to Plant

Today is the official start to planting at Campbell Community Garden! We have just a few more paths to finish up, and only 3 plots left to rent.

Celebrate Milwaukie Inc. who operate the Milwaukie Farmers Market (Sundays in Down Town Milwaukie) and Milwaukie Daze (July 27^th to 29^th) are a major sponsor of Campbell Community Garden, they paid for the installation of our fence and gates. I went to the first market day of 2012 and checked out some of the vendors, below is a small sample of what I found. You can see the full vendor list here: http://milwaukiefarmersmarket.com/vendors/

The Hansen Family Farm Booth is a busy place!

Hansen Family Farm: http://www.hansenfamilyfarm.com/index.html  From their website: “We grew over 100 heirloom/open-pollinated Pepper varieties and 125+ varieties of heirloom/open-pollinated Tomatoes in 2011!  Not counting the numerous other garden necessities like heirloom flowers, cucumbers, summer and winter squash, herbs, and melons amongst other rare and hard to find vegetables!”

Here is the list of their list of starts for this year (note they may not all be available every week!) http://www.hansenfamilyfarm.com/garden-starts.html

The veggie starts in the Hansen Family Farm booth have nice descriptive signs, thier website also lists good info about each variety.

Little Brown House Herbary: http://www.facebook.com/littlebrownhouse.herbary I couldn’t find a website for them other than this Face Book page. According to the listing on the Milwaukie Farmers Market vendor list, they are from Boring, Oregon. Their booth at the market had a very nice selection of culinary herbs.

The Little Brown House Herbary booth is full of culinary herbs, nicely tagged with descriptions.

March Biological: http://www.marchbiological.com/ Not a plant vendor, a BUG vendor! March Biological sells beneficial insects (green lacewings and lady bugs) as well as Mosquito Dunks for safely controlling the mosquito population (I really dislike mosquito bites!)

Shoppers line up to look at the lady bugs in the March Biological booth

Gardens For Rent

There are only four plots left to rent for the 2012 growing season!

There are two 10 x 10 foot plots available, $40 for the year, and two 4 x 12 foot plots, $30 for the year. Sign up on the Registration page.

We have two more construction work days scheduled: Wednesday (5/30) and Thursday (5/31) 3:30pm to 7pm. We will finish building the paths and cover them with wood chips; all to prepare ourselves for the first day of planting: June 1st!

CCG gardeners work together to build garden plots.

Garden Work Days

The total volunteer hours donated to the construction of Campbell Community Garden as of today is 243 hours! This is for construction only, there have been many more hours donated in the planning phase. Thank you to the hard work of all of our dedicated volunteers.

This weekend we need more help! We are on the home stretch of construction, the main tasks left to complete before planting day are installing the cedar bed frames and building the paths. Please be a part of breaking the 300 volunteer hours donated mark!

Work Day schedule:

Today, Thursday May 24th, 3:30 to 7pm: moving mulch, setting bed frames, and covering the paths with cardboard and mulch

Saturday May 26th, 10am to 2pm Moving mulch, setting bed frames, and covering paths with cardboard and mulch.

Wear work gloves, and clothing appropriate fort he weather, we will be working rain or shine. If you have a shovel, wheel barrow, cordless drill/driver, bring it. Please RSVP so I will know how many people to expect. 503-313-0638

Milwaukie Lumber delivers to Campbell Community Garden

We continue to make fast progress towards planting day at Campbell Community Garden. Between Friday afternoon and Saturday afternoon CCG volunteers put in 96 hours of work removing sod, hauling compost, and tilling the planting beds.

On Monday morning we had two big stacks of cedar delivered to the garden. A reduced price and free delivery by Milwaukie Lumber, a donation from Greg "Frank" and Michelle Hemer, and $500 from the the Clackamas County Master Gardeners Gray Thompson Community Projects Grant Program, allowed us to purchase enough cedar to edge all of our paths and planting plots. The edging will help to reduce the time needed to keep the beds from encroaching into the paths, making the garden easier to maintain. Our next work day, Saturday May 19th (10am to 1pm) will be spent installing the edging.

Glad we planned a wide gate! The fork lift delivery saves our volunteers the work of hauling the lumber from the street.

Garden Work Days

Here is our work schedule for the weekend:

Friday 5/11 3:30 to 7pm: sod cutting and tilling, and moving compost.

Saturday 5/12 9am to 2pm: tilling and moving compost.

If you want to volunteer on one of our first big work days, please let us know when you will be able to help; and if you have a friend who would like to volunteer some time, invite them too!

We will be using a Toro Dingo and a sod cutter; kids will not be allowed to run the machines, and this is probably not a good work day for little kids to participate in. Please bring a wheel barrow if you have one, and wear work gloves, closed toe shoes and sunscreen (yes! Sunscreen, not rain gear!)

For more information or to RSVP contact Sarah Smith: 503-653-0015 (office) or 503-313-0638 (cell)

Tilling Day

The rain is delaying us again. Tilling has been postponed for one week. The long range forecast looks great! http://www.wunderground.com/US/OR/Milwaukie.html

I have reserved a Toro Dingo for Friday (5/11) afternoon through early afternoon on Saturday (5/12); that should be enough time to get all of the beds tilled; but, just in case there isn't time to get to them all, we will till the beds already rented first. If you want to rent a plot, fill out the form on the tab at the top of this page!

We will be working from 3:30 to 7pm on Friday May 11th, and 9am to 2pm on Saturday May 12th. It would be great to have groups of 3 or 4 volunteers working in 2 to 3 hour shifts over the weekend. I will have our first load of compost delivered on Friday to spread over the weekend. Please RSVP so I will know how many people I have for each shift.  I need someone with a vehicle that can tow the Dingo to volunteer to pick up and/or return it with me at Johnson Creek Rentals.

Since we won't be able to till tomorrow (5/5) we can attend the soil health class at Saint Paul church (10am to Noon) and the Clackamas County Master Gardeners Plant sale in Canby!

April showers bring May flowers. May downpours make for an impatient CCG director!

~Sarah

Water!

On Saturday, Landscape East and West installed our waterlines and hose bibs. They generously donated the double check, timer, pipe, hose bibs, etc. and their employees volunteered their time and cut no corners to professionally install our water lines and eight hose bibs. Thanks to them, CCG now has a water system built to last for many years.

Making Progress

Thanks to Timberline Development, we have water at Campbell Community Garden! Our water meter is all ready for Landscape East & West's volunteers to hook our hose bibs up to! Soon we will be watering tomatoes!

Soil Health & Social

Milwaukie Community Gardens has invited Campbell Community Gardeners to:

Soil Health  & Social

Saturday, May 5th, 10:00-12:00

St. Paul's United Methodist Church
11631 Linwood Ave.

Please join us as we kickoff the gardening season!!

Heather, from Concentrates, will give a talk on building healthy soil.
Refreshments and a chance to meet your garden managers and fellow gardeners will follow.

We have a work day scheduled for this day from 10 to 1:00, however if we are rained out, or if any of our gardeners can't help us with tilling etc. I encourage you to attend.

Soil Health & Social sponsored by Milwuakie Community Gardens

Garden Kick-Off Meeting

It appears that we have crossed all of our permitting hurdles, now we are just waiting for weather dry enough to till and the installation of the water meter before we can start really building. We have over half of our plots reserved; if you want plot, act now.
On Saturday April 21^st at 10am we will have a Kick-off meeting with introductions, and a Question and Answer session at the garden site. I will share my tips for planning the start of your new garden. IF the weather has cooperated and the site has been tilled, we will have a mini work day after the kick-off, to measure and mark the paths and water lines. The kick-off will happen rain or shine. If you have any neighbors who would be interested in a plot, invite them to the kick-off! If you drive to the garden Kick-off, please be courteous about parking in front of neighbor homes, don't block driveways in the cul-de-sac.

Here is our "before" picture!

 I'm looking forward to taking some "after" pictures and harvesting veggies with my neighbors!

~Sarah

Calling all helping hands!

Green thumbs not required!

The Hector Campbell Neighborhood is ready to break ground on Milwaukie’s newest community garden at the NE corner of the grounds of Campbell Elementary School (off of Adams Street). The garden will have 28 plots for neighbors to rent and four plots for growing produce to share.

Garden Work Days will be held most Saturdays in April (depending on dry weather!) Check back on this website to confirm dates. If the soil is too wet, we won't be able to work.

NOTE: the list below has been edited (4/4/12), the wet weather has put us off schedule; we will post dates once we have an idea of when the big tiller can get it to do the first tilling. If the weather allows, we will have work days Saturday 4/14 & 4/21, plus a weekday afternoon or two.

• First tilling & grading: TBA (this will be done for us by the parks district, no volunteers needed)
• Survey/measure water and fence lines, mark out plots and paths: TBA
• Install water lines and hose bibs: April 28th (this will be done by Landscape East and West; we will need a few volunteers to help back fill trenches)
• Wood chip paths and edge with lumber: TBA
• Till compost into planting beds: TBA

Please RSVP to Sarah Smith, 503-653-0015 so we will know how many people we will have helping.

Campbell Neighbors: Register for your garden plot NOW!

Registration for garden plots at the soon to be built Campbell Community Garden is open! Plots will be assigned to gardeners living in the Hector Campbell Neighborhood first, gardeners from other neighborhoods will be put on a waiting list; if open plots remain after April 15th 2012, they will be assigned to the waiting list. If you have questions, you may contact Sarah Smith: 503-653-0015

Link to: CCG Registration form

Progress Update

We are waiting for a lease agreement from the North Clackamas School District, however we have moved forward with our planning.
The garden will have 28 plots to rent, ranging from about 50 square feet up to 200 square feet. The cost to rent a plot is still being figured out; once we know more about the operational costs (especially the cost of the lease), we will set the fee. We expect it to be in the range of $30 for a small plot and $60 for a large plot. The garden will also have four plots where volunteers will grow crops to harvest for donation.

We have commitments for two major donations:

• Wichita Sanitary Service is donating the pick up of a can of weekly plant debris from the garden. This generous donation will help our gardeners by limiting the amount of debris they will need to haul to their homes for disposal.
• Landscape East & West is donating the materials for getting water to all of the plots (pipe, hose bibs, back flow prevention, etc.) AND they have some employees who are willing to donate their time to help us install the pipes! Our garden volunteers really appreciate the help Landscape East and West's of highly skilled labor.

If anyone knows of other local businesses that would be willing to help, let us know. Here is a list of a few of the things we need:

• Water meter installation
• Chain link fence and gates
• Lumber (preferably cedar or juniper)
• Tools (heavy duty, professional quality shovels etc.)
• Hoses and nozzles
• Mulch & Compost
• Tilling, or rental of tillers (North Clackamas Parks will do the initial tilling for us, but we will need to till amendments into all of the planting beds)
• Refreshments for volunteers

Registration is open now, you will find the form on a tab at the top of the page. We will assign plots to those living in the Hector Campbell Neighborhood first, and then open it up to the entire city (assuming plots are still available) on April 15th. If registration numbers exceed the plots available, we will create a waiting list. At this point we do not know when the garden will be ready for planting, a lot depends on the weather in March and April.

We are looking for volunteers to help build the garden. If you are able to help, please let us know! Call Sarah Smith: 503-653-0015 or email hectorcambellnda@gmail.com Here are a few tasks we will need help with:

• Tilling and grading
• Staking off planting beds and paths
• Edging beds
• Moving compost
• Building paths
• Installing water lines
• Building fence
• Planting community beds

Thanks to the steering committee for their hard work on the planning of the garden, and to those who have committed to donating to the garden. This garden will be a great addition to our neighborhood!

Gardening Classes

I noticed daffodils beginning to peek out from the ground this morning, spring is on the way!

Here is a short list of upcoming gardening education opportunities:

Oregon Tilth's Comprehensive Organic Gardener Program

This program runs from March 14 - April 4 and takes place Wednesday evenings 6:00-8:00pm and Saturdays 10-3pm. Cost: $250

This multi-session program in organic vegetable gardening is designed as a hands-on course, introducing beginning gardeners to the dynamic world of organic gardening while getting your hands dirty in the process!  This series is a must for people new to gardening in general and people who have recently moved to the Pacific Northwest. It is an ideal blend of practical instruction and scientific fundamentals  -  paralleled with hands-on time working in the organic demonstration gardens. By the end, you will feel more confident and secure in your organic gardening ventures. Click HERE for more details.

Urban Growth Bounty 2012

Urban Growth Bounty's new season of classes expands your knowledge about growing abundant fruit and vegetables, raising chickens and bees, improving your soil and yard, and making delicious cheese. The classes are taught by Portland experts and will make 2012 a more sustainable, healthier year for the earth, your family and your budget. Click HERE for a list of classes.


Clackamas County Master Gardeners Events

February 25, 2012 9am to Noon, Free
Garden Discovery Day:  Have Fun with Know, Sow, Grow
Milwaukie Center, 5540 SE Kellogg Creek Drive, Milwaukie, 503-653-8100
This event is for the entire family. Adults will enjoy lectures, workshops, and a gardening clinic. Children will love the hands-on activities. During the event, you may have soil samples tested for pH and, if needed, get advice on how to balance it. Learn more by clicking HERE!



April 9, 2012 7pm, free

Getting the Respect from your Vegetable Garden! Marc Boucher-Colbert, Urban Agriculture Solutions LLC, Garden Specialist at Franciscan Montessori Earth School in Portland, OR

You can have a great year-round veggie garden even with a minimum time investment as long as you garden smart. Cut down on back-breaking labor. Win the battle over difficult soil. Squeeze out as much produce as possible from small spaces. Enjoy fresh food year-round. Come take back ownership of your vegetable garden and tell it what YOU want it to do.

Milwaukie Center, 5540 SE Kellogg Creek Drive, Milwaukie, 503-653-8100

Home Orchard Society Events
Click Here to check out their events page. Be sure to save the date for the Fruit Propagation Fair
Saturday, March 17, 2012, 10am to 4pm, Clackamas County Fairgrounds, Canby, Oregon.

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CCG Mission Statement

It is the mission of the Campbell Community Garden to provide a place for community members of all ages who share a common interest in organic gardening to grow fresh food for their family and friends, to strengthen community bonds, and to maintain an active use on the Hector Campbell School grounds.