10/19/2022 MASHPEE COMMUNITY GARDEN ADVISORY COMMITTEE Minutes

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in an email to him by Virginia. He left the meeting at that point, saying on his way out that he had filed a request for public records regarding emails to Conservation Agent. • Sheryl has created a chart for gardeners to sign, indicating whether they are willing to share their email address and phone number with other gardeners. This would guide the Board in terms of contact information to be sent out for gardeners, many of whom have expressed an interest in being able to communicate personally with their fellow gardeners. • Terrie Cook helped Virginia create an email address for MCGAC. Virginia is having difficulty getting those emails to forward to her personal gmail account but is working to get that resolved. It now appears at the top of the text on the main page of https://www.i,iiashpeei-na.gov/rnashpee-cg!nri]un2ygarden-advisory-committee. - It is communitvgardenmash ee gmail.com. • Fellow gardener Alan Peterson offered to help any gardeners that are having difficulty cleaning up their garden bed this fall. He said that we could relay his phone number to gardeners; probably will be done via email. I-LIMATI-11M • Invitations have been sent to all gardeners for the Saturday, October 22 Garden Celebration and Gathering. Virginia will send out a follow-up email for the event on October 21. She will again remind gardeners who want to garden beyond November 11t to submit a request for approval prior to that date, and that all other gardeners need to clean out their beds by then. An additional request will be made to take tomato cages and any plant poles home since garden shed storage space is limited. • Board members agreed that December Board meeting would be a good time to elect vice- president and appoint committee/task chairs. This will provide an opportunity for involvement of gardeners with each of them as appropriate. Sheryl will create a grid to work from at the meeting. • Sheryl and Virginia met with two new gardeners who had planted a number of perennials in their beds. In response to consideration of annuals vs. perennials that had been a point of discussion among Board members this summer, and the fact that there had been and still was no explicit policy or rule about what kind of flowers could be planted, Sheryl and Virginia recommended that the two gardeners (plots 11 and 14) be grandfathered in regarding what they had planted. The Board will discuss further and based on the following initial considerations, will figure out what to present to gardeners in the future about their plantings: --the community garden was founded primarily for the growing of vegetables, based on the strong public interest in gardening space for food production among Mashpee residents. --Annuals can be beneficial to the vegetables growing in the gardens and are fine to incorporate into beds. They can also be removed at the end of the season as gardeners clean out their beds, thus leaving the community garden looking well-groomed and cared for during the off-season months. --Perennials are often good pollinators, but if planted they should be ones that would not spread to other participants' beds. Consideration should be given to how they continue to grow each year and how they might impact vegetable gardening space. 2