{"id":1522,"date":"2026-05-31T18:54:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T22:54:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/?p=1522"},"modified":"2026-05-31T19:05:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T23:05:10","slug":"a-new-watering-system-and-7-pounds-of-greens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/2026\/05\/31\/a-new-watering-system-and-7-pounds-of-greens\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Watering System and 7.6 Pounds of Greens"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ll be straight with you. I was running on empty today. We spent all of Saturday rototilling over at the Eastpointe Community Garden, and instead of returning the tiller, we hung onto it overnight so we could break ground on a brand new flower garden here at South Warren. By Sunday morning, my body had a few complaints to file.<\/p>\n

So this recap comes with a confession. I was only at the garden for part of the day. I showed up, I left, and I came back. That actually points to one of my favorite things about these gardens. When your battery is low, somebody else picks up your slack. Try that at home. Miss three days of watering your own garden and you basically don’t have a garden anymore. Out here, we have a whole village helping keep things on track, and today that village was carrying me. If anyone earned MVP for it, it was Jeff, but more on him in a minute.<\/p>\n

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A Familiar Face From a Long Way Away<\/h2>\n

I rolled in somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00, and the work was already in full swing. Jeff, Chloe, Cola, Annie, and Lauren had all beaten me there. Lauren deserves a special mention. She helped start this garden last year before she moved out of state, and apparently she missed us so much that she drove all the way back from New York to spend a Sunday pulling weeds and harvesting greens. Did she make the entire trip just for us? Doesn’t matter – this is my story, and I’m telling it how I want.<\/p>\n

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Dropping Off the Tiller (and Then Dropping Out for a Bit)<\/h2>\n

My main job in the morning was simple. I brought the rototiller over from Eastpointe and showed Jeff how to get it started. After that, I am not too proud to admit, I headed back home for a little while. My sinuses were putting up a fight and I had some catching up to do around the house. I made it back around 12:30, helped run the tiller for a stretch, and then mostly did what I do best on a low-energy day. I grabbed my camera and got out of everyone’s way.<\/p>\n

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Burying a Watering Line<\/h2>\n

The big push today was the start of our new solar-powered watering system. For the last couple of weeks, Jeff has been working tirelessly to figure out the smartest way to put our Whole Foods Foundation funding to use. He finally landed on a plan, ordered all the materials, and today was the day the build began. Jeff trenched out what will become the mainline, carving the path for the buried line, while Chloe worked right behind him covering it all back up. Lauren and Annie pitched in on the waterline too. Jeff also found time to teach a few folks how to run the tiller, and when he saw me running out of steam behind it, he jumped in and finished the job (see, MVP).<\/p>\n

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Spinach, Arugula, and a Whole Lot of Greens<\/h2>\n

While the trenching was happening, the harvest was piling up. Cola and Lauren pulled what looked like an endless supply of spinach and arugula. Chloe swapped out some of the small plant labels for bigger ones, did some weeding, tracked down a few plants that missed getting labeled last week. By the time the greens hit the scale, the bins were overflowing. We brought in 7.6 pounds today, and 5.66 of those were spinach alone. Every leaf gets weighed and tracked, because feeding the community is what we are here for.<\/p>\n

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A New Flower Garden Takes Root<\/h2>\n

That overnight tiller rental paid off. We carved out a fresh patch of ground for a new flower garden, and seeing that turned soil sitting there full of possibility made the sore muscles worth it. Flowers might not feed anyone directly, but they feed the pollinators, and the pollinators feed everything else.<\/p>\n

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Two Good Dogs<\/h2>\n

No South Warren Sunday is complete without a few four-legged volunteers. Chloe brought her dog Walter, and it was his first visit to the garden. He spent the day exactly the way I wish I could have, napping in the shade and getting love from everybody. Jeff’s doggo Rory was along for the day too.<\/p>\n

A huge thank you to Chloe for filling in all the blanks and sending me the details so I could put this recap together, even on a day when I was barely around. That is really what makes this place work. Everybody pitches in, picks up the slack, and looks out for one another, whether that means finishing someone else’s tilling or writing up the day so future friends can find us. If you have been thinking about joining us, consider this your invitation. We get together every Sunday 10-2pm, and no experience is needed. Just show up, grab a tool or a watering can, and become part of it. There is always a weed to pull and usually a dog to pet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A spring Sunday at the South Warren Community Garden, and I was running on empty. Good thing the rest of the crew rolled in fully charged. We broke ground on a new solar-powered watering system funded by the Whole Foods Foundation, harvested 7.6 pounds of spinach and arugula, and tilled up fresh ground for a brand new flower garden. Here is what a slow day looks like when the whole village shows up to carry it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":404,"featured_media":1535,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":10,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"dipi_cpt_category":[],"class_list":["post-1522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden-party-recap"],"acf":[],"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"South Warren Community Garden","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1522"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1552,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions\/1552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"dipi_cpt_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/urbanseed.info\/south-warren-community-garden\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/dipi_cpt_category?post=1522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}