What are your gardening plans this year? Join our spring online series, "Growing Ideas: Inspiration from Novel Area Gardens," featuring local garden innovators, and learn about new ideas happening here on the Blue Hill Peninsula. Want to build a thriving backyard ecosystem? Include beautiful native plants in your borders? Grow nutrient-packed vegetables and fruits in the healthiest Maine soil ever? Or find fun opportunities to learn or volunteer with other gardeners, and share your skills and bounty with the community? This series highlights some of the exciting garden trends that are happening right here, right now, and offers practical ideas for every gardener.

On Thursday, April 22 at 7 PM, Callie Curtis will moderate a panel from the Blue Hill Garden Club, "Growing Together at the Blue Hill Community Garden." What’s that big fenced-in garden that sprang up last year on Tenney Hill? Come learn more from Blue Hill Garden Club members about the Blue Hill Community Garden. This new public pick-your-own vegetable, fruit and flower garden is managed by the Garden Club. Located on graciously-provided GSA property in downtown Blue Hill, the Community Garden shares the vision modeled by the Incredible Edible Network—“to create kind, confident, and connected communities through the power of food!” It aims to use organic practices to increase opportunities for food independence and well-being in the Blue Hill Community by providing a space for educational and volunteer activities that focus on gardening, food production, environmental science, and nutrition.

Callie Curtis will moderate a panel of Garden Club members:

Susan Brookman is a relatively new transplant to Maine, moving to Blue Hill in 2016 after administrative careers with the Girl Scouts, and conservation organizations in the Midwest, South, and mid-Atlantic. She was first inspired by the Incredible Edible Network via a TED Talk a decade ago, and has been working with the Blue Hill Garden Club to bring this project from dream to reality right here.

Rachel Emus has 10 years of food production and community gardening experience. She is the Hancock County Food Programs Manager for Healthy Acadia, and a Master Gardener Volunteer with UMaine Cooperative Extension. She currently serves on both the Master Gardener Advisory Committee and the Extension Association in Hancock County.

Peter Leonard is currently president of the Blue Hill Garden Club, and is also a certified master gardener. He has been growing in Blue Hill Falls for 5 years.  

This online program is co-sponsored by the Friends of the Library and the Blue Hill Garden Club. It is free of charge and everyone is welcome. Register by calling 374-5515 or using the library's online calendar at www.bhpl.net to receive the Zoom link to join.