Spring meeting minutes

Here are the minutes from our spring meeting, held on April 6th.

1. Presentation of Campus Crops

I won't write down all that has been said. Briefly, there have been discussions about what to do with the harvest, i.e. whether to give everything to the volunteers, or give a bit to Midnight Kitchen, or try to sell some through Organic Campus or the Farmers' Market. This will have to be discussed later in the season.

To cover the costs of operating the gardens, it has also been suggested that we demand a small fee from members, but it has been pointed out that costs are not so high, so selling some vegetables might be enough.

Finally, although no garden coordinator is planned to be present at each gardening session throughout the summer, Carl will offer advice and support via email if necessary, and will also be present during the weekend gardening session. Other knowledgable members from the past years (or new people this year?) might also be present once in a while.

2. Starting the season

2.1 Plans and calendar

The plans and calendar for the gardens have been presented, discussed and modified. The plans and calendar are available on the Facebook group and on the blog.

2.2 Seedlings

Seedlings will be grown in the MacDonald greenhouse again this year. People can email campuscrops@gmail if they want to help out with the seedlings this year.

2.3 Compost giveaway

The City of Montreal is giving out compost at the Complexe environnemental St-Michel on May 10 & 11. We need a car, sturdy bags, shovels, and a few pairs of hands for this. We're looking for someone who has a car available for either of those days.

2.4 Garden opening

The lower garden will be opened on April 24th at 2pm if the weather is clement until then. The container garden will be opened later. 

3. Schedule for garden maintenance

Since there will be no garden maintenance to be done until the end of semester, and since more volunteers are expected to join at that point, we'll wait until then before deciding on our gardening schedule for the summer.

4. Projects

Ideas of projects for this summer:

-Adding fruit bushes and perennial vegetables to the garden

-Having some collaboration with McGill Grounds to take care of the fruit orchard on McGill property

-Selling some vegetables

-Winter harvest

People were quite enthusiastic about the fruit orchard.

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The plans of the gardens can be found in the blog post Update from the Garden Planning Meeting.

The calendar can be found below: