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Summit Community Garden Takes a Long Winter's Nap

Summit Community Garden's first full year is a hit.

November is knocking on October’s door with temperatures dropping – signaling both farmers and gardeners to put their final touches on their fields and gardens for a long winters nap.

Executive director for the Summit Community Garden, Ken Kullack, invited everyone to their final Autumn Harvest sale on Thursday from 3 - 4:30 p.m. He said that their first full season with plot renters exceeded their goal of having sixty renters by twenty.

“All of those plot renters came in and did a really good job of growing a lot of great food," Kullack said. "We were really impressed by the commitment and dedication from the plot renters.”

Greens and root vegetables were in abundance but sunflowers were the hit for their first full season.

“We had our irrigation system in place once the season got started," Kullock said. "I think that helped a lot because at the garden – essentially we have a drip irrigation system for all the plot renters so they don’t have to worry about continuous watering if they want to do hand watering for things like seed starting they can do that themselves through watering cans that we provide and hoses but there’s a water of constant supply going to their plots all the time so I think that helped a lot.”

Rent for the four-by-sixteen feet plots are $80 a season and there are only 15 available for next year. Kullack said it’s a steal since they provide water and unlimited tips and advice from their garden staff.

“Basically our garden staff is out there to maintain the garden because it’s one and a half acres," Kullock said. "There’s a lot of work that has to get done – and basically also provide any advice or tips or what have you, for the plot renters who come in and maintain their plots throughout the day.”

They also have a demonstration garden to show the community the types of things that can be grown at seven-thousand feet.

“So we’re growing a lot of variety of vegetables like a lot of greens like chard and kale and lettuces, but we’re also growing root vegetables like carrots and radishes," Kullock said. "We actually grew a small variety of tomatoes and peas and a whole bunch of other different kind things and we actually had a whole section of flowers which we decided to expand into and we had like I mentioned, sunflowers which were eight feet tall, which was crazy.”

Twelve-hundred pounds of fresh, organic produce from the demonstration garden was donated to local food banks last year.