Iowa Gardening For Good
General garden help
This year we are anticipating planting over 13 acres at our core site. For those not as familiar with acres, that is like 13 football fields of vegetables we will plant and harvest. All of this is completely dependent upon volunteers.
We need people to do pretty much all parts of the gardening. It doesn't matter if you are a single individual or part of a group. We need help with planting, weeding and harvesting. No experience needed.
Most of the time it is hard for us to predict in advance what will be happening on a given day. But we typically have at least three different activities for people to pick from or rotate to and from.
Our planting begins in March and continues through early August. Our harvesting starts around the first of June and can continue into October for crops.
Setting up the drip irrigation system
Under the black plastic mulch, there is drip tape. This drip tape has a hole every foot that allows us to slow drip irrigate with less water and keep the water from encouraging weed growth.
Planting seeds
These volunteers are planting seed along along the drip tape lines.
Harvesting produce
During most of the season the actual picking of vegetables is the main task.
Starting seeds in seed trays
Some of the plants are started in seed trays and then transplanted into the rows of plastic mulch.
Planting transplants with a "dibbler"
All of our transplants are planted into black plastic mulch with a dibbler. The dibbler is the hand tool the looks like a "T" that is used to poke a hole in the plastic and the soil. After poking the hole, the transplants are placed into the hole and the soil is "firmed up" around the plant.
Teaming up
Many of our tasks can be done more efficiently in teams.
Variety of things to pick
We usually have a range of things to pick.