Green Thumbs Wanted: Lincoln Community Garden Seeks More Volunteers For 2023 Season

LINCOLN - Lincoln Community Gardens is seeking volunteers for the 2023 season and is holding a community garden meeting at the Lincoln Public Library on Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. to learn more.

Jim Sposato, who manages the park with Lincoln's Judy Cohia, also cautions residents that they may have little space in the area to plant and tend their own private gardens.

"We always had it from the start, but nothing was taken away," said Sposato. "We have a lot of space there. We want to involve more people in the gardening business. They can help us or have their own land."

Lincoln Community Garden is now in its eighth year and is a completely voluntary organization. The produce has been donated to Grace Place in Lincoln, a ministry started in 1998 and supported by local churches.

As of 2022, the community garden has supplied the nonprofit with vegetables, including 3,325 tomatoes, 3,585 peppers, 1,363 okra, 472 sweet corn, 229 pounds of potatoes, 106 pounds of onions, and 218 cucumbers. Other foods include pumpkin, radishes, green beans, squash, lettuce and herbs.

Married, has been gardening with volunteers to prepare land for spring planting and greenhouse renovations. This year, Sposato says he plans to grow some of the vegetables in the greenhouse before moving them to an outdoor garden.

Normal business hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9am-11am Volunteers are needed to help plant crops, remove leaves and remove weeds; fixing broken deer fences; And choose vegetables. Everyone who volunteers can take food home to use for themselves during the harvest, Sposato said.

The 2022 gardening season is tough, according to Sposato, because the weather in the same month is different. Vegetables need constant water, not too much or too little, and a constant temperature, neither too hot nor too cold in the same month.

Park Volunteers conducts EAST classes every year at Prairie Grove High School and St. Mary in Fayetteville. At Thomas Catholic Church. The superintendent from the temporary detention center in the area also helped.

The garden was voted the best project of 2016 by the best gardeners in the region. In 2021, Sposato was named Teacher of the Year and Cohen was named Gardener Educator of the Year.