Our Fall Party

The fall party was a great success, with a wonderful selection of food, beautiful weather, and a great crowd to enjoy the day together. A few dozen people had a chance to learn about and celebrate the amazing work that was done in this space over the past few months and reflect on the relationships that have been built as a result.

Cooking squash with Ms. Jones and other party preparations

Ever since we started growing squash, we were told by Ms. Jones that she makes the best squash in town. The time finally came to put her words to the test. Our yellow squash was ripe and ready to go, and so she got to work cooking up a storm.
We also got to enjoy salad, cantelope, watermelon, and more.

Preparing for Our Fall Party

The kitchen was busy in preparation for our fall party. The collard greens and corn bread were a great success.

Fall Garden Party!

It's been a terrific growing season and now it's time once again to enjoy the produce of our garden together. So there will be three major components to our party -
--Eating delicious dishes made from things we've recently picked from the garden, including yellow beans, tomatoes, basil, swiss chard, and pumpkins
--Yes, you heard that right, we grew pumpkins, so now is the perfect time for the kids to decorate them
--We're getting free bulbs to plant, and we will love extra hands to put the many daffodils and crocuses in the ground for us to enjoy next spring

We'll also get to hear from some of the regular garden participants and recognize their fantastic achievements. We'll play games and get to know our neighbors. You'll also be able to learn how to remain involved for the next growing season.

Hope you can make it. If you're able, please bring some food or drink to share.

Noon on Saturday, October 22. 19th and Burke St. SE, next to the Stadium Armory metro elevator

As always, if you have any questions, email stadiumarmorygarden@gmail.com

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins

We're getting really excited about the pumpkins we've got growing in our mini pumpkin patch. These photos taken by our expert kid photographer document five of the pumpkins we've got growing on the vine. We've gotten a terrible case of squash bugs, so we're hoping they will all survive. The pumpkins are green and only starting to turn orange, as the pumpkin leaves are looking worse and worse. But here's to hoping that we'll have something to carve for Halloween.

Enjoying the Produce

It's been far too long since we've posted, but wanted to share a few pictures of what we've been cooking up with food from our garden. The green beans, squash, and herbs have all come in well, so we had a delicious meal with herb pizza, green beans, and cooked squash.

Meanwhile, we got excited last week because we finally had the beautiful sunflower emerge to add some more beautiful yellow color to complement the marigolds.

August Garden Party

This Wednesday we had a great turn-out to our Garden Party, complete with garden tours, great food, and a chance to meet new neighbors and friends. The place is really beginning to produce so we had to take a look at the pumpkins beginning to grow on the vine and the yellow squashes getting longer by the day. Our master griller prepared tasty meat options, as well as some grilled eggplant. We had a great assortment of veggies, including several kinds from the garden. The herb bread had rosemary, oregano, and basil. And of course with all this mint, it was appropriate to have some mint chocolate chip ice cream and strawberry mint popsicles. The partyers included regular volunteers who have seen this from the beginning, as well as people who are new to the area (and even some thinking about moving to the area). It was a great time, and people were already dreaming up when we can have the next party.  So if you didn't make it this time, hopefully you can come again soon.

Party Rain Date and Request to Call 311

Because weather.com shows 100% chance of rain, our Saturday Garden Party is being postponed to Wednesday August 17, at 6:30pm.

In the mean time, please help us out by calling 311 - the Mayor's Citywide call center - to request the following:

1. We would like the 3 overflowing trash bins at 19th & Burke St. SE to be emptied immediately. It has been 3 weeks since the last time they were emptied.

2. We would also like all three of this trash bins to be put on a regular pick-up schedule.

The only way we've been able to get the trash emptied all summer is to call 311 repeatedly, so please be sure to include the second point, so that the city can start regularly emptying the bins.

Thanks and see you Wednesday for an awesome Garden Party/Cookout!

I say PRODUCE, you say PARTY!

Our garden is beginning to produce some delicious treats. This picture gives just a sample of what we've got - rosemary, basil, mint, swiss chard, peppers. We've been growing it together, now it's time to eat it together!

Whether you've helped regularly at the garden or just passed by, we welcome you to come to come celebrate how far we've come. Not only is this a more enjoyable space - the lights are working now, the grass has been mowed, the trash (we hope) will get picked up regularly [please keep calling 311 to ask the city to do their job]. But on top of all that, we have a great garden to show for it, where we are really growing food for the community to enjoy.

SATURDAY GARDEN PARTY
August 13 @ 6:30pm
Our Stadium Armory Community Garden
19th & Burke St. SE

GARDEN: Get a garden tour – Plant some seeds – Help water plants - Learn how to volunteer
MEET: Your Neighbors – Our ANC Representative Mr. Francis Campbell
PLAY: Soccer – Football – Water balloons – Sidewalk Chalk
EAT: Grill – Cookout – Fresh Veggies – Fresh Fruits – Ice Cream

Potluck style – please bring something to share if you are able

Questions? Call 202-656-9890 or email stadiumarmorygarden@gmail.com

The Greening of the Garden

Progress continues in the garden. In the area where the Trash Mob recently helped us remove piles of weeds, we have now planted cast-offs from the local garden center. Peppers are already in the ground, with plans for tomatoes, squash, and melons to follow close behind.

It's amazing to observe the greening of the garden. A few posts ago we wrote about how "It's Growing!", but to compare the third picture here with the same shot in that post, it's incredible to see the difference.

The last photo here is of one of the pumpkin plants in our pumpkin patch. We got a late start, but are hopeful that we'll have some great little pumpkins by the end of the summer.

Finally! An Answer to Our Three Simple Requests

Ever since we've been working in this space, we have tried to do our best as individuals and as members of the community to take care of this space in our neighborhood. And in turn, we've requested that the city do a few simple things that we consider basic public goods in a public space. The pictures to the left show the dire conditions:

1. Mow the grass. In this photo, you can see in the foreground where a month ago we hand-snipped the grass that had been as tall as the fence. Behind the fence, one half got cut at one point, but the section closest to the street was left to become prairie grass, aka a trash magnet.

2. The lightstands over the park benches did not have functioning lights, posing a public safety risk, since the metro elevator is right next to this park area

3. The trash has rarely been emptied, and often is left to overflow, making the litter problem worse, since there's no place to fit the litter.

So for this post, we would like to thank all of those who were persistent and helped bring resolution to these three wishes this past week. We are proud to report that the grass has been mowed, five of the six lightbulbs have been replaced, and the garbage has been collected (we hope this will become a regular occurence). All of these have helped to make the area much safer and cleaner, and ultimately more able to be enjoyed by the community.

We were almost at the stage of wishing for a genie to grant our three wishes, but thankfully, the city came through and dealt with these public goods.

Joining forces with Capitol Hill Trash Mob

Today we had the awesome privilege with teaming up with the Capitol Hill Trash Mob for a united attack on trash, litter, and garbage in and around Stadium Armory metro station. Together we filled over well over ten bags. Our group shared some of the underlying reasons why the area collects a lot of litter:

1. The city rarely empties the 3 trash bins (or if they do, only one or two are emptied, never on a regular schedule). Therefore the garbage fills to overflowing, making it difficult to actually put anything in a bin.
2. The grass behind our garden is also not regularly cut by the city, which makes it an attractive location to toss trash.

Our group begins each work time with picking up the trash, so it was fantastic to have others enthusiastically joining us to make the place clean. And we came up with some more strategies to convince the city to do its job.

Another huge accomplishment is that we eliminated a whole patch of weeds, trees, and shrubbery that shouldn't have been there. Thank you so much to those who helped. The photo at the bottom is one of the "before" shots, and as you can see in the top 2 photos, we definitely did some damage.

Way to go, Capitol Hill Trash Mob and Our Stadium Armory Community Garden Crew!