Community garden begins to take root

Wrangell's community garden has a chance to grow once more.

On Dec. 8, eight people gathered in the community gym classroom to discuss forming a committee to oversee the direction the project will take.

"That's really what tonight is all about, is not making any decisions or appointing anyone to a position exactly, but we really just want to find out who is serious about being on the committee and if you don't want to be on the committee, that's OK, there's plenty of volunteer (opportunities) we would love to have folks signed up for. We really just want to give back to the community garden," said Valerie Massie, the IGAP coordinator with Wrangell Cooperative Association. She and IGAP technician Kim Wickman are in charge of the community garden project.

"In reality (a committee) should be six to 10 people," Wickman added.

Some in attendance have a little gardening background, while others are relatively new. Most agreed it is a chance to spread the seeds of education through classes and hands-on experience.

"I think it's good for the whole community. I think more people need to learn how to grow their own food," said Dawn Mill, who is retired and started her own garden a couple years ago. She said it's good to show people "what can be done in Wrangell, despite the slugs."

It was pests, like the slugs and deer, that led to the community garden going dormant for many years. Maintenance became difficult when garden beds were being decimated by the creatures. The committee went from about 16 members in 2009 down to Wickman and Kate Thomas, director of parks and recreation.

Originally, the garden in the southeast corner of the Lions Ball Field behind the cemetery at 1.5 Mile, was about one-fifth of an acre. Wickman estimates the new size is smaller than one-tenth of an acre, which will be fenced in and more manageable with only 15 gardening beds as opposed to the previous 45.

Massie and Wickman recently applied for a grant through the Rural Alaska Community Action Program for the garden, and were awarded $17,000 that must be spent by Sept. 15, 2022. Of those funds, $9,500 is being spent on a commercial compost machine that will break down household waste in a couple of days, compared to the year it takes the current cold composting system to turn green garbage into soil.

"Our goal is to purchase it and start getting it shipped up here this winter so Kim and I can start working with it, get it installed, and there's going to need to be three-phase electrical access installed," Massie said. "We really want to learn the ins and outs of it to make sure we don't mess it up right when we get it."

The capacity to turn the compost at the garden isn't possible now due to the large amount of it, and the colder weather makes the decomposition process longer.

"The last couple of years, we've been really trying to figure out how does compost work? Composting is intimidating," Wickman said. "I'm so afraid I was going to goof it up and have a gross, gooey mess - and a couple of times I did - but when you add the correct mixtures of browns and greens, you have a really nice product."

There were plans to hold classes on composting and other gardening topics in 2020.

"We were going to do a cool symposium on composting and gardening, we had a list of volunteers who were going to come help, and then the world went crazy, and that all went away," Wickman said.

With that, WCA took a step a back and started looking at how to get the garden growing again. They created a survey to gage community interest. Forty-four people responded, all expressing various degrees of involvement.

Those in attendance last week offered ideas for gardening classes, growing and sharing produce and herbs, and using the space to teach children where their food comes from. Some said keeping it simple to start was a good approach.

"Keep it simple; grow kale in one bed and strawberries in another bed," said Mya DeLong, owner of Groundswell, which sells fresh floral arrangements as part of its products and services. "I think trying to do too much and too many can get overwhelming."