Good morning,
We are planning an organizational meeting this Monday, 6/20 @ 7PM and Zebu. In the future, depending on the size of the group, we can walk over and meet at Ernie's office on White St. and Broad, across from Starbucks.
At this meeting I hope we can come together to refocus our efforts. As of now we are community gardeners without a garden of our own. I think this will change soon, but as we work for our site, I think it has been a positive experience to garden around town. There are other opportunities for this as well. We are planning on meeting to finish up our work at the Count Basie Monument this Saturday 6/18 at 8 am-- show up when you can! Also, we just got invited to help Bob Hespe and his group with the roses at Riverside Gardens. That will be Sunday 6/26 from 9 to 1. (please see his email pasted below) Thanks Bob!
At our meeting I think it will also be important that we organize ourselves in a way that the RBCG speaks with one voice, but that we ensure that the cause is not just about one individual. I know I have been sending many emails but I don't want to step on any toes, hopefully we can organize so decisions are made as a group :)
Yesterday I spoke to Jeanne Patterson, a master gardener who is helping us out, for about an hour and she had some great ideas. We can discuss Monday, but I think we need to really look at all the sites in RB again before we completely focus on the Middle School. I seems like the Middle School is a pretty great site, but it will be a different process with the School Board. After speaking with the superintendent and the board president on Friday, it may be a lengthy process. If there is a Borough owned plot that would work for us right away, we might be able to get the council to approve it right away.
I have a call in with Diane Larson-- the head of the Master Gardeners and the home horticulturist at the Ag building in Freehold. Maybe we can get her and her crew on board with us. I also know a handful of horticulturists at Brookdale and I will be reaching out to them.
**Update- I spoke with Diane and once we have a site, or a few site to choose from, Master Gardeners will be available to assist in choosing the best site/ getting things growing!
Also, Ernie is speaking to a group of restaurateurs with the RiverCenter tomorrow morning. I am putting together a brochure for him and I will share it with you all.
Regarding the Count Basie monument-- I called NJ Transit and got the form to adopt this site, along with RBCC. It looks like a minimal commitment (4 times a year I think?) And yes, I agree we should not focus exclusively on this one site-- but I did have fun. Just a few plants should be fine. Mark Molzon of Molzon's Nursery has said he will help us out.
**Update- I met with Deborah Eadie from the NJ Transit Adopt a-Station program at 2:00 today to discuss adoption and the future of the site. She was very supportive and said that essentially, within some guidelines, the project is ours to plant, etc. as we want, once our application is approved. I hope to have the application submitted by the end of the week.
Hope to see you all soon,
John
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From: Robert Hespe
As you may remember, we (re)met at Riverside Gardens back in March,
when my wife and I and friends and RBR students were pruning and weeding.
Since then, we've been back half a dozen times to get the sorely neglected
rose beds into good shape. And it's been effective. The roses are covered
with blossoms!
We're meeting one more time this summer-- Sunday, June 26th. We'll be
there from 9am to 1pm, doing grunt work-- weeding and pulling invasive vine.
It would be great if you could spread the word to the folks on your Maple Cove
and Community Garden email list.
Thanks,
Bob Hespe
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