The Community Gardens of Cedar Falls is a partnership between garden volunteers and the City of Cedar Falls.  Alex Oberle is the garden manager for 2021 and the gardens have a management committee consisting of current gardeners Caleb Wallace and Glen Keith as well as Peg Keller (2020 garden manager).  Alex is the lead person for communications (to fellow gardeners and the city) and troubleshooting, as well as managing the finances, website, and email.  The three person committee assists the manager to include approving any major purchases, providing feedback and advice on any challenges and opportunities, and conducting long term planning to carry into next year. The city mows the larger garden space, maintains and pays for the water, and tills the garden plots.  The lawn mower, hoses, and hose reels are common community garden property.  The community garden is responsible for mowing the pathways, and thank you to Caleb who has done the mowing the past two years and has volunteered to do so again this year.

Saturday, May 8th is opening day/planting day for Cedar Falls Community Gardens!  I did a walkthrough of the garden yesterday with the city as a final step before the spring tilling of the plots.  I would like everybody to please re-check their plot assignments a couple days out from opening day as I may be changing some of the plot assignments.  Plots will be marked with yellow flags that have the number on one side and the letter on the other (e.g. A 10).  We have a lot of leftover and donated fencing, trellises, tomato cages, and other items from last year located on the NE corner of the gardens–these are for common use in the community gardens so please feel free to use any of these.  I’ll be posting 2-3 times a week for the next few weeks to talk about garden operations and some new news for this growing season.

If you rented a plot in the past ten days I just assigned you a garden plot and you can see it on the garden schematic on this website.  Thanks again to the City of Cedar Falls for replacing our water main.  Rather than simply repairing it, they took the time and effort to replace it in full with a new durable type of material so we should completely avoid any of the water main breaks and leaks that caused such a hassle for most gardeners last year.  The final spring tilling of the plots should happen in the near future, weather dependent, so I don’t yet have a garden opening/planting date for everybody.  Please check back here in the next few days for an update, even if that update might be . . .no update for another week.

Thank you so much to the City of Cedar Falls for replacing/repairing the water line to our garden!  I’ll follow up with the city this next week for any follow up details to share, but it looks like their work is complete as of yesterday.  This means we are one major step closer to opening/planting day.  All that remains is for the city to complete the spring tilling of the plots.  Ideally, planting could happen as soon as the weekend of May 1st, but tilling is very dependent on dry weather so opening weekend could instead be May 8th or May 15th.  I’ll post an update again in a week.

If you’ve not had a chance to look yet, I posted plot assignments early this week.  We have several plots available, including two half plots, and I’ll be working on ‘infill’ to rent out the remaining plots towards the center of the garden.  I’ll update plot assignments about every week between now and the end of May, or until all available plots are rented.

More Cedar Falls Community Garden plots are now available, but I’ll be pausing the release of any new 10 X 20 ‘half plots’ until mid-April when I can reassess the overall space in the garden and the city’s progress on repairing or replacing the water main/water supply (so 10 X 40 plots, which are two adjoining 10 X 20 plots, are available).  If you have purchased a plot this I’ll be adding the plot assignments by the weekend of April 10th and 11th.  

I’m pleased to announce that garden plots are available for all Cedar Falls residents starting on March 15th.  Thanks for everyone’s patience for the late start this winter/spring.  As those of you know who gardened here last year, we had not one but two water main breaks and I didn’t want to issue an open call for plots until I found out if the repair/replacement work would take several plots out of commission or not.  The good news is, and thank you to our city colleagues, the main will be repaired or replaced in the next few weeks, well in advance of the growing season.  As you reserve plots this year, please note that we will have a limited number of half plots (10 X 20 for $25) available compared to past years and I expect the demand for half plots will exceed supply.  So please reserve early if you want a half plot; we have plenty of full plots to rent out.

Hi gardeners, my name is Alex Oberle and I am the new Community Gardens of Cedar Falls manager for 2021.  I want to thank former managers Peg Keller and John Smith for the assistance that they have provided to help me transition into this role over the past few months.  I’ve gardened at the community gardens since the very first year it was established, typically renting a full plot and growing both vegetables and flowers, especially tomatoes and winter squash.  My wife and I have a big backyard garden too, but every year that goes by there is more shade and we’ve had to transition some of those raised beds back to lawn due to lack of sunlight.  I look forward to meeting all of you.  Please always feel free to email me with any questions or concerns at cedarfallscommunitygardens at gmail.com.

WE DO NOT EXPECT COVID-19 TO IMPACT GARDENING FOR THE 2020 SEASON.

Social distancing should not be an issue if we visit in our own plots.We might have to yell across the plots or communicate more via email, but I do not expect any major changes. Make sure to throw any trash away so no one else has to pick it up. We will have a seed and seedling swap the first Saturday in May, and that will be staggered so we don’t have to actually come in a group. If you have any extra seeds or seedlings, or need seeds/seedlings please email us at cedarfallscommunitygardens@gmail.com or use the contact form so we can organize this with safety in mind. 

It has been a beautiful week, so we’ve been thinking about gardening as April opens and May rapidly approaches. The Community Garden has six open plots left for lease for the 2020 season in the first phase. Although we can open up the West Side of the gardens, they have not been used in a few years and we will likely stop leasing plots when the six left are taken. 

The garden has gotten a lot of use since it it opened after the 2008 floods and we need to be thinking about how our gardening impacts the soil quality. So, this year we have set aside conservation plots. We will plant nitrogen fixing green crop covers this summer and move the gardens down next year to give the current plots a rest. Rotating our plots will keep the soil healthy and reduce soil borne viruses and pests that we have seen increase in the past few years. So, next year, you will have a different plot while we use cover crops on the plots we use this year. 

If you are new to gardening with us, please read up on the rules and tips and I want to emphasize again, please do not plant potatoes. The Colorado Potato beetle that destroyed last year’s crops will be present in the soil this year and unless you are vigilant about removing every last beetle and egg from the plant, it will kill all your potato plants and move onto everyone else’s tomatoes.
If you planted squash last year, rotate where you planted due to vine borers and keep an eye out for the signs  https://extension.umn.edu/yard-and-garden-insects/squash-vine-borers.
We will be posting more often as we get closer to May and hopefully the city will get back to me with the til plans. 
Let me know if you have any questions- Peg.