Hello to all our returning and new participants in the South Park Urban Garden (S.P.U.G.) project!

2011 was a great success – we went from an initial seven to THIRTY garden beds, added a huge tank to make watering much easier and the fine folks at the Dayton & Montgomery CountyPublic Health even gave us a sign for the garden! Wow, how official! Now, let’s grow into 2012!

On Saturday March 24, 1-4PM we will be having our annual Big Cleanup Day! This is an annual cleaning, gleaning, and getting-together of the garden beds. We will be spreading manure, topping off beds with compost (most of which is from generous South Park residents bringing their leaves to our handy compost bin – thank you all!), trimming and general tightening-up. There will be other Cleanup Days during the year, but this is the bigone.

March 24 is also when you can claim your gardenbed(s). If you had a bed last year, andwould like to again, great— we just need you toconfirm that you wish to participate again. However,one doesn’t need to participate in the Big CleanupDay to have a bed or two. Just contact Nick (nicholas.eddy@lexisnexis) and details can beworked out.

We are considering a smallfee in order to pay for water (if we can ever get the City to go ahead and get us a tap), but it will be small, no more than $10. We should know for sure by our first cleanup day. Participants provide their own seeds, starts, tools, watering cans, etc and can come and go to water, weed and pick fruit as they please.

We do ask that if you claim a bed, and then find you cannot use it, that you let us knowas soon as possible, so another gardener can make use ofit! Okay, enough with myyammering! Get your noses back in your seed catalogsand we will see you on Saturday March24th!!

Nick Eddy & Amy Lee, Co-founders of S.P.U.G.