Hub Gardens at One Year

tomatoes thrive on our sunny patio
at the entrance to the food pantry

a row of cabbages in one of our garden beds
featuring soil built from sheet mulching

It's like a dream come true here at Mother Hubbard's Cupboard.  We've always wanted to share our community gardens with all of the folks using our food pantry services. Our three community gardens at Crestmont, Butler Park and Banneker Community Center have always been open and accessible to everyone, but sometimes seeing is believing. It can be challenging to convey the beauty and convenience of growing food right outside your door...unless...well, you have some food growing right outside your door!

from old washing machine basins to leaky wheel
barrows, many everyday objects can be
repurposed into planters

compost bins made from repurposed shipping pallets

Since moving into our new space last June, our on-site gardens have gone from zero to abundant in just twelve short months. Designed to showcase a number of methods of growing food in small spaces, the Hub garden site includes raised beds, window boxes, found-object container gardening, straw bale gardening, a food forest, herb spiral, perennial beds, lasagne/sheet mulched beds, and STRAWBERRIES! With an emphasis on keeping costs down and conserving resources, our gardens feature compost bins made from re-purposed wooden pallets, rain barrels, a low-tech irrigation system and plenty of mulch (straw, leaves, wood chips...).

a perennial bed lines the front of the building.
also in view: rain barrels and a new picnic table

permaculture inspired herb spiral built during a Hub workshop

Garden interns hand out seeds, plants and gardening tips from our patio, and lead folks into the garden to learn about growing food at home or to take home samples of freshly picked fruits and vegetables. Pantry patrons have picked strawberries, harvested spinach, peas, herbs and other greens, and youth groups have toured, tasted planted and harvested.

a view of the irrigation system and our new sign inviting
folks to join us in the garden

Window boxes constructed by eagle Scouts
line the ramp railing, and host edibles
such as this trailing squash vine

MHC's Garden Coordinator Kendra Brewer, remarked at a recent garden workday "The Hub garden is now where we hoped it would be in our first year. It's a real garden now."

Herb Gardening with the Hub

This June, the Hub offered our annual Herb Gardening workshop.  We were thrilled to show off the many herbs on site at MHC, and to offer participants cuttings of oregano, pineapple sage, thyme, and mint, as well as divisions of our comfrey and chive plants to grow at home.  We covered the basics of planting, tending and propagating herbs, as well as discussing the many uses of garden herbs.  Here are some of the highlights from the workshop:

Cooking with Herbs

We started the class with a tasting of pesto pasta, one of our favorite Hub meals using fresh herbs from the garden.  See our pesto recipes here.  We talked about the many delicious uses of herbs we can grow and cook with, and a few participants had attended our recent Pie for Dinner workshop, and were excited to grow Herbs de Provence to bake the Provencal Tart with Gruyere and Herbs.  The Herbs de Provence mix includes basil, fennel seed, lavender, marjoram, rosemary, sage, summer savory, and thyme, all herbs that grow well in our part of Indiana.    

Growing Herbs

Herbs are a great entry point to gardening, and most of the class participants were interested in starting small containers of herbs either on a windowsill or on a porch.  We discussed the basics of container gardening, including offering adequate drainage, sun exposure, and watering.  See our container gardening handout here.  We also discussed the plant families of common herbs, and their growing habits and needs.  We discussed the growing habits of mint family plants in particular, as all the cuttings participants were bringing home were from the mint family.  One tip that was a workshop favorite was to save eggshells and spent coffee grounds to add to herb containers and offer plants a nutrient boost.

Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard Garden Tour

We took a tour around the Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard garden, identifying herbs and talking about their growing needs and uses.  We took a longer look at the MHC Herb Spiral, a permaculture inspired planting design that offers multiple microclimates for herbs.   The Hub garden has a wide variety of herbs, from cooking herbs like rosemary and tarragon to those used medicinally like calendula and comfrey.  Comfrey is one of our favorite herbs at MHC.  We grow it in all 4 of our community gardens and use it as a mulch or ferment it into a fertilizer.  Join us during our open garden volunteer hours to learn more about the Hub’s herbs and their essential role in our community gardens.