News: Community Gardens
- The 2011 Survey of Community Gardeners is now available.
Gardening Classes
The Dahlem Ecology Farm offers at least one gardening-related program per month. Please visit the Events Page for the most up-to-date information about classes. You may also click here for gardening tips from Lisa Brown.
About the Community Gardens
The Dahlem Ecology Farm is proud to offer 48 organic garden plots! The plots are 20 ft x 20 ft with plenty of wiggle room between plots. 8.5-ft tall deer fencing surrounds all of the plots, plus a critter fence along the bottom. Water and gardening support is included in the plot rental fee. Please contact us if you are interested in gardening at the Dahlem Ecology Farm.
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Special Gardens
Monarch Waystation
One of the 48 garden plots is currently being transformed into a Monarch Waystation as a learning tool for elementary students. Monarch Waystations provide resources necessary for monarchs to produce successive generations and sustain their migration. Without milkweeds throughout their breeding areas in North America, monarchs would not be able to produce the successive generations that culminate in the migration each fall. Similarly, without nectar from flowers these fall migratory monarch butterflies would be unable to make their long journey to overwintering grounds in Mexico. The need for host plants for larvae and energy sources for adults applies to all monarch and butterfly populations around the world (http://monarchwatch.org/waystations).    For 2010, Dahlem's fifth and sixth grade Outdoor Adventure Day Campers ventured over to the Ecology Farm each week to experience the sights, sounds, scents, and tastes of organic farming. Campers were guided through the farm plots with Farm Educator Lisa Brown to investigate what was growing from the ground. They expressed delight and eagerness in tasting the very veggies most kids comely disdain. Afterwards they participated in hands-on activities such as farming with Native American tools, establishing a Monarch Waystation, and creating their own mini-compost bins. The Ecology Farm is and will continue to become a valuable tool for cultivating not just vegetables, but a deeper appreciation for the environment that sustains us all.
~Kimberly May, Former Education Director Children's Garden
One of Jackson's Master Gardeners, Paul Brencher, will be caring for a Children's Garden plot. The Children's Garden will be an educational tool used for exposing kids to gardening, food production, and fun! | Heritage Breeds
Do heirloom or heritage (pre-1950s) vegetable varieties grow as well as hybridized? Do seeds from our heritage supplies grow better tasting vegetables and herbs? Preserving the non-hybrid gene pool of seeds is critical to maintaining life as we know it, but how does it compare to hybridizing the best traits of different varieties into one plant? This “Seed Savers Exchange” plot, cultivated by a novice gardener, seeks to answer those questions. All of the plants here are from seedsavers.org open-pollinated stock. The tomatoes and peppers were received through the mail as plant starts. All others were started as seeds. Most are organic seeds and all of the plants were started and continue to grow organically. Several other plots at the Dahlem Community Gardens are experimenting with a few of these varieties so satisfaction can be weighed by others. Cross-bred hybrid seeds that most gardeners buy each year cannot be saved from plants and replanted because the second year they do not reliably grow true reproductions of the original plant. Since 1975 Seed Savers Exchange has sought to save North America's diverse, but endangered, garden heritage for future generations by building a network of people committed to collecting, conserving and sharing heirloom seeds and plants, while educating people about the value of genetic and cultural diversity. Intensive Planting for Donation
One of our plots will be intensively planted with delicious produce for donation to the Interfaith Shelter in Jackson, MI. Raised Bed Garden
Getting your vegetable beds above ground level can help you control the time your seeds need to germinate (raised beds warm up sooner in the spring, so seeds can be planted earlier), lift your plants of soggy areas, and ease your back when it comes to weeding. Raised beds don't have to be expensive and can be raised 3 inches or 3 feet - whatever meets your needs. |
Killdeer
Killdeer laid eggs in the Community Gardens earlier this year. Killdeer are shore birds, but show up long distances from any water to use "people habitat", full of bugs. And, they are not afraid of people. Killdeer will perform the broken wing display to lure intruders away from their nests. One time we were hiking in high Alpine meadows filled with beaver dams, when a Killdeer, with her broken-wing display, stayed in front of them for a quarter mile. Once they were clear of her nesting area, her wing miraculously repaired and off she flew. They are known for fluffing themselves up, displaying the tail over the head and running at large animals like cows and horses in an attempt to make it change its course and not step on the nest. Once I witnessed a Killdeer take on a tour bus when the bus made a turn on a dirt and gravel road and was about to squash its nest. The Killdeer won! What a beautiful, feisty bird. Killdeer make no nest. They lay eggs in any old impression like the lawn edges of golf courses, fringes of schools, and even on graveled roofs scattered throughout an area. The babies are precocial (they are mobile and able to follow parents right after hatching). Some chicks were observed leaping from a building several stories high and surviving. Their nests have no structure and with the camouflaged eggs, the whole thing blends perfectly into the surroundings. When the chicks hatch, they look like miniatures of the parents. Killdeer are one of the most successful shore birds because of their willingness to adapt to people and civilization. (Redcliffs Audubon)
Dahlem Ecology Farm - 1427 Wickwire Rd - Jackson, MI 49201
