CTGrower Pantry & Home Grow log
Posted: Thu May 29, 2025 11:07 am
I have enjoyed lurking on other people’s grow logs, so I thought I would start my own. This community is wonderful, and I have learned a lot from seeing what people do.
I have built and manage the Food Pantry garden in our town. There are 200 families that shop there and 100% of the food grown in the garden goes directly to the clients. It has been quite an experience and I have learned a lot and have made many mistakes over the few years it has been in existence. Until this garden was started in 2022, I had little experience growing vegetables. I would mostly grow a small salsa garden in earth boxes at home (tomatoes, hot/sweet peppers). Growing at a larger scale is much different.
Its been a busy spring, but now most everything is built and the 1st plants planted, and its raining so have a little bit more time to write. We added new beds this year and now have 560 sqft growing space. I will show pictures of this years garden with a little bit of background on when it was built with lessons learned along the way.
The picture below is our back ‘L’ garden. This was the 1st garden that was built in 2022 and has about 240sqft. This garden was built in haste in May of 2022. The scout who was supposed to build the raised bed had not communicated any definitive plans and I had started my tomato plants way too early so.. you can see where this is going. I ended up building this raised bed while keeping the scout project area open in case they pulled through (they didn’t). A very generous company donated 12 yards of garden soil so.. I thought we would put the soil on cardboard and plant on the ground. After the soil was in place, one of my mentors convinced me that the plants would not be healthy with this arrangement. So… I built raised beds around the soil. Take it from me… DO NOT DO THIS in this order!! Since we had no $$ I developed the skill of asking for donations. The corner blocks, drip line, many boards, cattle panel and string trellis materials were donated (and brought home in my Prius). We repurposed some fence sections for a garden strip along the fence with the fence as the back of the raised bed. We got a small grant to purchase mainline & connectors and fertilizers etc.. We survived! In 2022 there were 2 other volunteers on our team.
In 2023, the fence was starting to strain under the weight of the soil, and the fencing that we used in place of boards was bowing as well. We raised some $ with a fundraiser and used the ‘ask for donation' skills to add raised bed structure between the fence and the soil. DO NOT DO THIS! Moving the soil and building after the fact was very difficult.
This area has not changed much since 2023. We are maintaining/ fixing things from the hasty build.
This year, we have added four 8ft cattle panels trellises on both sides of a couple of beds. We just planted 10 cherry tomatoes (Sun Gold and Cherry Bomb) on 2 of them. We will plant cucumbers on the other 2. In the corner of the ‘L’ we have about 40 peppers (ACE and Sweet Sunrise). Under the string trellis structure we have 12 tomatoes (Big Beef, Supersonic, Jetsetter, Stupice, Martha Washington, Kellogs Breakfast). I plan on pruning to 4 leaders on each plant. We put some of the plants under some row cover for some extra protection from wind / cold nights.
Below is a picture of the seedlings that we planted. The tomatoes and peppers were started in 2” soil blocks using Johnny’s 512 soil. The tomatoes were potted up to 3-4” pots. The peppers were left in as soil blocks. Next year, I think we will pot up the peppers. They did well in the soil blocks, but could have benefitted from more space. I will also use bigger pots for the tomatoes.
These tomato plants are the healthiest that I have grown. I grew some in cell packs at home with different soil (and no greenhouse) and they are much smaller. Im not sure if it is the soil or cell packs? I’m very pleased with the plants in soil blocks with Johnny’s 512 soil (and the greenhouse).
Below is the fence section of the garden. At the end is 50 garlic plants. In the middle is 2 sections of cattle panel. We will grow cucumbers here. (Max Pack and Diva + a couple Salt & Pepper)
Below is the ‘boy scout’ bed. It is 4ft x 24ft with drip irrigation. A different scout actually built 16ft of this last year (2024), and we fixed it (lol) and extended it another 8 ft this year. We will plant squash in this bed (Dunja & Zephyr) next week.
At the end of the boy scout bed is a temporary 6ft x 8ft greenhouse that someone donated this year. It has been a big learning year using the greenhouse since I have never used a greenhouse before. Since I live 10 minutes away from the pantry, I researched and purchased some temperature sensors that I can monitor from home. One is inside the greenhouse and the other is measuring outside temps. The sensors have been very helpful, but sometimes are a bit erratic. I haven’t mastered ways to isolate them from the direct sunlight yet. We also goofed by putting the greenhouse under a tree. It seemed like a good idea when the leaves were not out yet! Lesson learned.. don’t put your greenhouse under a tree!
Below is the herb garden section in the front of the building. The 4 beds in the front were added last year and the 2 beds with the cattle panel arch was built this year. The beds are from Vego and are steel coated with Zn-Mg-Al which is reported to last 20 years. So far so good, but we have only had them for 1 year.
The 4 in front have parsley, chives, oregano, thyme and sage. We will plant cherry tomatoes on the arch. (2 sun gold, 1 sweet 100 and chadwick cherry.)
Below is the front right growing area. We had 2 beds on the left last year with a huge willow and a couple of spirea’s in front. We cut the willow and spireas down and had the stumps ground out. This year the 2nd bed from the left was extended and we added two 4x12 beds on the right. I added drip irrigation to these beds. The purchase of the beds and irrigation and trellising was from a grant that we got from our town for this year. We still needed to get donations of soil and materials for the boy scout bed extension etc.. It has been a busy spring!
We just planted these beds with tomatoes and peppers. Shout out to @JayneR13 and @MissS for seeds for most of these tomatoes.
We have 22 shorter stature tomatoes here (Firebird sweet, Pink Berkley Tie dye, Hanky Red, Daniel Burson, McClintocks Pink, Early Girl, Red siberian, Pink Siberian(?) ) We have about 40 ACE peppers in 1 of the 4x12 beds.
All in all this has been a rewarding project that started out small and has grown. We now have a team of 9 volunteers to tend the garden. The produce from the garden is small relative to the need, but what is grown is appreciated by the clients.
I have built and manage the Food Pantry garden in our town. There are 200 families that shop there and 100% of the food grown in the garden goes directly to the clients. It has been quite an experience and I have learned a lot and have made many mistakes over the few years it has been in existence. Until this garden was started in 2022, I had little experience growing vegetables. I would mostly grow a small salsa garden in earth boxes at home (tomatoes, hot/sweet peppers). Growing at a larger scale is much different.
Its been a busy spring, but now most everything is built and the 1st plants planted, and its raining so have a little bit more time to write. We added new beds this year and now have 560 sqft growing space. I will show pictures of this years garden with a little bit of background on when it was built with lessons learned along the way.
The picture below is our back ‘L’ garden. This was the 1st garden that was built in 2022 and has about 240sqft. This garden was built in haste in May of 2022. The scout who was supposed to build the raised bed had not communicated any definitive plans and I had started my tomato plants way too early so.. you can see where this is going. I ended up building this raised bed while keeping the scout project area open in case they pulled through (they didn’t). A very generous company donated 12 yards of garden soil so.. I thought we would put the soil on cardboard and plant on the ground. After the soil was in place, one of my mentors convinced me that the plants would not be healthy with this arrangement. So… I built raised beds around the soil. Take it from me… DO NOT DO THIS in this order!! Since we had no $$ I developed the skill of asking for donations. The corner blocks, drip line, many boards, cattle panel and string trellis materials were donated (and brought home in my Prius). We repurposed some fence sections for a garden strip along the fence with the fence as the back of the raised bed. We got a small grant to purchase mainline & connectors and fertilizers etc.. We survived! In 2022 there were 2 other volunteers on our team.
In 2023, the fence was starting to strain under the weight of the soil, and the fencing that we used in place of boards was bowing as well. We raised some $ with a fundraiser and used the ‘ask for donation' skills to add raised bed structure between the fence and the soil. DO NOT DO THIS! Moving the soil and building after the fact was very difficult.
This area has not changed much since 2023. We are maintaining/ fixing things from the hasty build.
This year, we have added four 8ft cattle panels trellises on both sides of a couple of beds. We just planted 10 cherry tomatoes (Sun Gold and Cherry Bomb) on 2 of them. We will plant cucumbers on the other 2. In the corner of the ‘L’ we have about 40 peppers (ACE and Sweet Sunrise). Under the string trellis structure we have 12 tomatoes (Big Beef, Supersonic, Jetsetter, Stupice, Martha Washington, Kellogs Breakfast). I plan on pruning to 4 leaders on each plant. We put some of the plants under some row cover for some extra protection from wind / cold nights.
Below is a picture of the seedlings that we planted. The tomatoes and peppers were started in 2” soil blocks using Johnny’s 512 soil. The tomatoes were potted up to 3-4” pots. The peppers were left in as soil blocks. Next year, I think we will pot up the peppers. They did well in the soil blocks, but could have benefitted from more space. I will also use bigger pots for the tomatoes.
These tomato plants are the healthiest that I have grown. I grew some in cell packs at home with different soil (and no greenhouse) and they are much smaller. Im not sure if it is the soil or cell packs? I’m very pleased with the plants in soil blocks with Johnny’s 512 soil (and the greenhouse).
Below is the fence section of the garden. At the end is 50 garlic plants. In the middle is 2 sections of cattle panel. We will grow cucumbers here. (Max Pack and Diva + a couple Salt & Pepper)
Below is the ‘boy scout’ bed. It is 4ft x 24ft with drip irrigation. A different scout actually built 16ft of this last year (2024), and we fixed it (lol) and extended it another 8 ft this year. We will plant squash in this bed (Dunja & Zephyr) next week.
At the end of the boy scout bed is a temporary 6ft x 8ft greenhouse that someone donated this year. It has been a big learning year using the greenhouse since I have never used a greenhouse before. Since I live 10 minutes away from the pantry, I researched and purchased some temperature sensors that I can monitor from home. One is inside the greenhouse and the other is measuring outside temps. The sensors have been very helpful, but sometimes are a bit erratic. I haven’t mastered ways to isolate them from the direct sunlight yet. We also goofed by putting the greenhouse under a tree. It seemed like a good idea when the leaves were not out yet! Lesson learned.. don’t put your greenhouse under a tree!
Below is the herb garden section in the front of the building. The 4 beds in the front were added last year and the 2 beds with the cattle panel arch was built this year. The beds are from Vego and are steel coated with Zn-Mg-Al which is reported to last 20 years. So far so good, but we have only had them for 1 year.
The 4 in front have parsley, chives, oregano, thyme and sage. We will plant cherry tomatoes on the arch. (2 sun gold, 1 sweet 100 and chadwick cherry.)
Below is the front right growing area. We had 2 beds on the left last year with a huge willow and a couple of spirea’s in front. We cut the willow and spireas down and had the stumps ground out. This year the 2nd bed from the left was extended and we added two 4x12 beds on the right. I added drip irrigation to these beds. The purchase of the beds and irrigation and trellising was from a grant that we got from our town for this year. We still needed to get donations of soil and materials for the boy scout bed extension etc.. It has been a busy spring!
We just planted these beds with tomatoes and peppers. Shout out to @JayneR13 and @MissS for seeds for most of these tomatoes.
We have 22 shorter stature tomatoes here (Firebird sweet, Pink Berkley Tie dye, Hanky Red, Daniel Burson, McClintocks Pink, Early Girl, Red siberian, Pink Siberian(?) ) We have about 40 ACE peppers in 1 of the 4x12 beds.
All in all this has been a rewarding project that started out small and has grown. We now have a team of 9 volunteers to tend the garden. The produce from the garden is small relative to the need, but what is grown is appreciated by the clients.
The plants are strong, so I'm counting on them forming suckers to replace the leader. Not ideal, but.. it is what it is. I do not have any replacement plants.