The Center for Sustainable Living

The new Greenvale Park Community Garden is off to a great start! 27 families and individuals have so far claimed space in the garden, filling 17 of the 21 available plots. Northfield Tractor & Equipment has generously offered to donate plowing and tilling of the garden this year, and the Healthy Communities Initiative have donated some additional funds for scholarships and supplies. We’re looking ahead toward the groundbreaking that will happen in the next month, bringing the garden into seeable, touchable, taste-able reality!

To that end, the Northfield Community Gardeners are seeking community help in collecting some of the tools that will be needed for the garden. We’ll need some tools that the gardeners can share. When spring cleaning time hits your garage, look around for garden tools in good condition that you’re no longer using: rakes, hoes, shovels, garden forks, spades, trowels, pruners, etc. We need some wheelbarrows and wagons to help move buckets of water around the garden, and we’d also like to have a rechargeable weed trimmer (preferably not gas powered) for trimming our long perimeter fence. If you’ve upgraded tools and still have some used but usable ones cluttering your garage or barn, we’d love to help simplify your life by taking those extras off your hands!

And here’s another idea: it would be wonderful to have a small shed created from recycled materials, to store our communal tools and to add another visual symbol of our green intentions to the garden site. Any architects or handy crafts-people out there who would like to set their minds (and shoulders) to this project? We do have some funding to help purchase supplies. Contact us at northfieldcommunitygarden@hotmail.com if you can help with designing and supervising construction of such a shed . . . or if you have tools to donate!