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Season-by-Season Guide for Planting and Maintaining Your Community Garden

Generally speaking, a few hours a week should be sufficient to plant, maintain, and harvest your community garden. Here's your guide to a happy and healthy garden in the winter, spring, summer, and fall.

During winter, hold meetings—one or two a month—to plan your garden and assign work:

• Decide what to plant: annuals, perennials, trees and shrubs, shade or sun-loving varieties?
• Determine the quantity of plants needed for beds, gardens, parkways, etc.; and
• Create a monthly calendar for specific jobs and assignments, as well as events to be held in the garden, such as workdays, picnics, and performances. 

When early spring rolls around, dedicate several days to cleaning and raking out beds.

Prepare soil in beds by:

• Renting, hiring, or borrowing a tiller;
• Tilling to a depth of eight inches;
• Adding amendments, such as sand, peat, well-composted organic matter, and fertilizer if you wish;
• Tilling to mix amendments into the soil;
• Raking out smooth; and
• Marking areas within beds where plants are to go.

Acquire plants (usually a few more than you anticipate needing to use as replacements). The Chicago Park District sometimes makes surplus plants available on a first-come-first-served basis.

Don't forget about the City of Chicago, Department of Environment’s GreenCorps, a comprehensive community garden assistance program that offers materials and training in the spring and fall. They also sponsor free plant distribution days.

The University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service's Hort Corner, the Morton Arboretum, and the Chicago Botanic Garden offer plant and community gardening information and other education services.  Also consider the University of Illinois Master Gardener Program for guidance.

Openlands provides general technical assistance, including help ordering mulch from the city, free plants for community gardeners (Great Perennial Divide), GreenChicago mini-grants, and the expertise of TreeKeepers. For more information, contact Openlands Community Outreach Coordinator Julie Samuels via e-mail or by phone at 312-863-6256.

Plant. Follow directions received with the seedlings, plants, or seeds, and group plants in "masses" for greatest effect. Plant annuals among perennials for showy color and to fill in as perennials mature.

Using a fine spray, water back and forth several times. Don't wash soil, form deep puddles, or soak one spot at a time.

The time needed for these tasks will depend on the size of the lot and the number of volunteers. Weed and water at least once a week.

Later in the spring, cultivate when the surface of beds dry out, breaking up crust and uprooting weed seedlings (continue this for the rest of the season).

Water deeply once or twice a week—this and rainfall should equal about one inch per week. Do NOT make several light waterings.

Apply fertilizer, if you wish, as a top dressing:

• Apply granular fertilizer lightly between plants,
• Keep it away from stems,
• Cultivate it in lightly, or
• Add rich organic compost/manure instead.

Mulch:

• Use rotted manure, grass clippings, compost, wood chips, bark, and/or nutshells;
• Apply after soil has warmed up deeply to conserve water and keep down weeds;
  

Hard mulches should be raked aside and can be tilled under when well-weathered. Soft mulches can be dug under in the fall.

In the summer, weed and water as necessary (about two times a week in two-hour shifts) and perform general plant maintenance:

• Pinch back plants to keep low compact growth;
• "Deadhead" or remove old, dry blossoms to look neater and encourage more flowers;
• Keep lawn edges neat and out of the beds; and
• Manage pests by hand picking bugs or diseased plant parts, and try to "live and let live" with a few critters—consult the Safer Pest Control Project, the University of Illinois Cooperative Extension Service's Hort Corner, or the Garfield Park Conservatory for advice.
  

Come autumn:

• Harvest;
• Clear out dead annuals, trim dried perennials (or leave for winter texture in the garden), and add to your compost pile;
• Rake aside hard mulch;
• Apply organic material such as peat moss, chopped leaves, manure, and compost;
• Till soft mulches and organic material into beds;
• Plant trees and bulbs for spring bloom;
• Plan winter meetings; and
• Update your garden diagram to help plan for next year.

(Thanks to Bob Milke at the Garfield Park Conservatory for most of the information in this outline)

Article Index
Season-by-Season Guide for Planting and Maintaining Your Community Garden
Early Spring
Late Spring
Summer
Autumn
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