Calling All Neighbors! Give Back to Your Favorite Neighborhood Community Garden, Sat., 4/14

T-minus 10 days until our spring cleanup day is here! Remember, YOU put the “community” in “community garden,” and we need your help.

This is the garden’s biggest work day of the year, and we are thrilled to partner this year with the Keystone Monon Neighborhood Association and Keep Indianapolis Beautiful to give back to our entire neighborhood.

ACT TODAY: RSVP online, visit our Facebook event page, and share the flyer at your favorite neighborhood haunts or email it to friends!

WHEN AND WHERE: Saturday, 4/14, 9am-noon at Arsenal Park (1400 E. 46th St).

WHAT TO BRING: All ages welcome; dress for the weather, and bring a water bottle, work or garden gloves, and shovels, pitchforks, rakes, and a wheelbarrow if you have them!

We are so grateful for your support! Help us make a HUGE difference in just a few hours.

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FREE SEEDS! Don’t Miss Our Spring Kickoff and Seed Giveaway on Weds., 2/21, 6:30-7:30pm

We are kicking off our THIRD growing season with our seed giveaway and season planning meeting! Meet your neighbors, help brainstorm events and education workshops we’ll host this summer, and get plenty of free seeds thanks to our friends at Whole Foods Market.

WHEN: Wednesday, 2/21/18, 6:30-7:30pm
WHERE: ACE Preparatory Academy, 5326 Hillside Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46220

MEETING DESCRIPTION: Each year, we spend our first meeting talking about all of the ideas everyone in our community has for the garden. Whether it’s social gatherings, yoga in the garden, educational workshop ideas – we base the garden’s activities around what our community would like to see. Come share your ideas!

We also have plenty of seeds to give away, generously donated by Whole Foods Market on 86th St., to get you started this spring. Even if you aren’t planning to join the community garden this year, don’t miss the free seeds for your home garden!

All are welcome, and no gardening experience is necessary – just a desire to build community, learn, grow, and have fun with your neighbors. You don’t need to be a resident of Keystone-Monon to join.

“Pretty Simple Cooking” – A New Cookbook to Inspire Your Seed Starting Plans (And the Authors Are Locals!)

Just as we begin dreaming up what seeds we’d like to start this spring, a brand new cookbook comes out that seems to be made for the gardening crowd – and it was created by Indy locals!

In “Pretty Simple Cooking,” Indianapolis residents Alex and Sonja Overhiser, the husband-and-wife dynamic duo also known as A Couple Cooks, have released a cookbook that is everything we are looking for. It features fresh, whole food ingredients; simple, accessible recipes; and page after page of gorgeous, mouth watering results.

And we love supporting all in our local community who help put fresh food on our plates! 

• Order your own copy today: A Couple Cooks – Pretty Simple Cooking: 100 Delicious Vegetarian Recipes to Make You Fall in Love with Real Food
• Meet the author! Visit the Indy Winter Farmers Market from 10-11 am on Saturday, 2/17 to meet author Sonja Overhiser. She’ll be selling and signing copies of the new book. Be sure to find out what her favorite recipes are while you’re at it!

Here are just a few recipes we can’t wait to try over here:

• Balsamic Blueberry Breakfast Parfait
• Baked Goat Cheese
• Layered Mediterranean Hummus Platter
• Creamy Cauliflower Cashew Curry
• Santorini Bowls
• Rainbow Soba Noodle Bowls
• Smoky Red Lentil Stew

In summation: Get it. Got it? GOOD!

Garden with us in 2018! Applications now available

2018 marks our third growing season at the Keystone-Monon Community Garden at Arsenal Park, and we invite you to grow with us! 

Please visit our “Garden With Us” page for full details about the application process. You can also contact Christie and MaryAnna at KMCommunityGarden@gmail.com with questions.

What’s so special about the Keystone-Monon Community Garden? While growing our own fresh, organic produce brought us together, even more than that we are a community organization. We believe community gardens:

• Grow community strength and cohesiveness
• Normalize urban agriculture
• Provide a place to grow food and learn together
• Celebrate the power of people as we work to build knowledge, empower, and engage the full diversity of our community
• Increase neighborhood pride and beauty; decrease crime
• Build new connections among community members, increasing care and concern for others

If you are interested in growing your own food and getting involved in your community, join us in 2018!

Recipe Corner: Slow Cooker Pumpkin Turkey Chili

We just couldn’t wait until 2018 to begin one of our new endeavors: creating a recipe corner of delicious recipes, tested out by our gardeners! 

It can be hard to figure out how to cook fresh produce or veggies that might be new to you. We also know how disappointing it is to grow something from the ground up, only to be less than impressed with the final prepared product.

With that in mind, our Recipe Corner will provide an ever-growing list of crowd pleasing recipes to use with produce grown right in the garden that won’t let you down. Contact us at kmcommunitygarden@gmail.com if you have a recipe to share!

SLOW COOKER PUMPKIN TURKEY CHILI: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/228404/slow-cooker-pumpkin-turkey-chili/

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One of our community gardeners, Sharon, grew these beautiful cheese pumpkins this year and gifted one to my family, so I knew I needed to find just the right way to use it. The recipe linked above, complete with both chili powder and pumpkin pie spice, hit all my personal requirements: 1) decadently delicious, 2) ridiculously easy, and 3) filled with veggies and legumes. We skipped the cheese and added cumin, tomato sauce, carrots, and cauliflower. Extra points: I have enough pumpkin to make a second batch for Christmas night!

This Holiday Season, We Celebrate YOU!

Happy holidays from the community garden to all in our community! As we close out the garden’s second growing season, we celebrate YOU.

Everywhere you look at the Keystone-Monon Community Garden at Arsenal Park, you see community. From donated lumber to countless volunteer hours to donated seeds and plants to our gardeners’ green thumbs, our garden would be nothing without community.

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As we reflect on 2017, we thank all in our community who made this year such a success: our gardeners, our generous sponsors, and our community supporters. We are so grateful for you!

WHAT WAS NEW IN 2017?

• In August, our first Neighborhood Garden Tour raised over $600. Close to 30 participants visited five different gardens, and we welcomed the support of 11 business sponsors!
• We started a by-donation yoga series in 2017, Yoga in the Garden. Huge thanks to founding partner John-Payton Rowley, SoBeFit, and yoga instructor Lisa Daugherty, CITYOGA, for their time and energy. We hope to continue in 2018!
• We built three new garden beds: two waist-high, accessible beds, thanks to the work of gardener Liz Laughlin, owner of Limelight Coffee, and a large communal bed, thanks to a wonderful group of volunteers who served in honor and remembrance of one of their loved ones. To connect with that amazing group of volunteers filled our hearts and reminded us of why we do this. Huge thanks to the Marion County Master Gardeners Association whose generous grant paid for these exciting infrastructure additions!
• We added compost bins and a blueberry patch.
• We hosted a seed giveaway, garden soil workshop, and seedling sale, open to all in our community.
• We partnered with so many in our community! We would be nothing without our community partners and supporters. Please support them year-round and during this holiday season. And the biggest thanks go to Indy Parks and Recreation for their continued support of the garden.
• We gardened! 20 gardeners and families grew food for themselves all summer long, bringing home fresh, organic produce and learning side by side.

WHAT DO WE HAVE PLANNED FOR 2018? We have many exciting plans for the coming year! In 2018, you’ll see:

• Updated garden signage to tell our story and help community members connect with the garden and each other when they visit.
• Website updates, including a recipe corner, virtual garden tour, gardener biographies, and other activities.
• Expanded educational and social opportunities to continue building community through activities rooted in gardening, health, and wellness. And more yoga!

JOIN US! In 2018, we hope you join us or continue being a part of what makes our garden such a wonderful place: community.

• Applications for garden plots for the 2018 season will be available January 1!
• Contact us at kmcommunitygarden@gmail.com or on Facebook with your ideas or questions.
• Interested in becoming a financial supporter or in-kind donation opportunities? We would love to talk with you! Contact Christie and MaryAnna at kmcommunitygarden@gmail.com.

What a Ride! Garden Tour Recap and BIG Thanks

Last Sunday, we celebrated the beautiful diversity of neighborhood gardens flourishing right here in Keystone-Monon! Our first ever neighborhood garden tour went off without a hitch, and it was so much fun to explore our community with our own neighbors and new friends.

Today, we need to send up one more huge thanks – to the gardeners who welcomed us into their beautiful growing spaces – Caity and Kent, Sharon, Jill, and Steve; to IMPD Officer Jeff Parmalee, who kept everyone safe on our bikes; and to our dear Friends of the Garden supporter, Limelight Coffee Roasters!

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LIMELIGHT COFFEE ROASTERS, Friends of the Garden

Limelight Coffee Roasters is a small, handcrafted coffee roasting company located in Indianapolis, Indiana. We roast sustainably grown arabica beans from around the world and pay a premium price to support farmers who focus on quality while caring for the environment, their community, and their family. Locally, we strive to provide our community with a diverse variety of coffees with different flavors and aromas.