Altoona Community Garden's Blog

The Altoona Community Garden kick off dinner is scheduled for September 9th at 6PM. It will be at The Family Resource Center at 5414 6th Ave, Altoona. If you would like to bring a covered dish, please feel free. Hope to see you there!

-Casey

The Altoona Community Garden has been and will continue to host free workshops throughout the summer. The workshops are held at The Blair County Extension Office, Valley View “E” Wing 301 Valley View Blvd Altoona Pa 16602. They begin a 6:30 and usually last around one hour.

Past workshops have included Native Plants presented by Dr. Stan Kotala and Urban Gardening.

Tonight’s workshop, Cooking with Fresh Vegetables  will be presented by Judy Wahl. The presentation will include food demonstrations, free information packets, free recipes and free recipe starters!!

August 26th’s workshop, Preserving your Harvest will be presented by Sharon McDonald.

Native Plant Workshop

Mikayla's beautiful flowers!

All the pretty butterflies

July 7th was a HOT one, but in spite of the oppressing heat several members of the group Mother’s and More brought their children out to the garden to beautify the raised beds! We painted hand print butterflies and flowers all over the lettuce/ onion. Tomatillo bed! The group also made a Caterpillar flower pot out of recycled coffee cans. We filled them with soil and planted beautiful red impatients. Towards the end of the event we even received an exciting visit from the local news crew!

Caterpillar!

Our garden has been very successful this year. It is truly amazing! We have donated Lettuce, Peas, Kale, Squash, Zucchini, Cucumbers, Basil and Parsley to The Saint Vincent De Paul’s Soup Kitchen throughout this summer.

Photo by Jeff Robison

Photo By Jeff Robison

Coming soon…Peppers, Toamtos, Cabbage, Tomatillos, Carrots and Beans.

Friday, May 21st was The Altoona Community Garden’s first Planting Day! We had beautiful weather and great volunteers to help us! The Mayor of Altoona joined us in the morning for our ribbon cutting ceremony and also got down and dirty as he helped us prepare the beds for the vegetables. All our vegetable beds our now planted and we are just waiting for all the native plants to come in so we can finish up.  Our next project coming this week is laying all the mulch between the beds. We were able to finish half of this project on Planting Day. If you would like to volunteer to mulch this week or weed, water and harvest throughout the summer, please contact Casey VanNest @ 814-941-7711 ext 401 or cvannest@unitedwayofblaircounty.org

In conjunction with Earth Day, April 22nd The Altoona Community Garden took its first steps in becoming an active fixture in the city. 20 volunteers participated in lot maintenance, organizing the beds, painting the beds and filling them with soil. Joe Haid and Home Depot did a great job building the beds!  

We are also pleased to announce, thanks to Altoona Neon’s generous donation the sign was cemented in place!

The dayended with pizza and a light drizzle of rain. Everyone did a fantastic job and worked really hard to complete our tasks!

Community members and area businesses are currently creating a ground breaking project in Blair County. The Altoona Community Garden is working to feed hungry families in Blair County by growing fresh vegetables in a converted vacant lot on 7th Ave. All vegetables grown on 830 7th Ave will be donated to our local food banks. We are also working to teach the public about creating their own gardens, cooking and preserving fresh vegetables through workshops and presentations. A third component of The Altoona Community Garden is The Pennsylvania Native Plant Garden, which will teach our community about Pennsylvania Ecology and promote conservation. The Altoona Community Garden will encourage social, environmental and economical benefits throughout our area.