It’s almost time to dust off your gardening tools and head down to the library to help out with our Community Garden again! Beginning on May 16, our gardening program Roots & Readers will return for its second year and take place every Thursday at 11am in the Community Garden. In the event of bad weather, Roots & Readers will meet in the library’s Event Space for a garden-themed program.

 

During Roots & Readers, patrons will learn how to grow their own food, watch the plants grow week after week, and help the library with general garden upkeep including weeding, watering, and watching for pests. Roots & Readers is great for any age! Younger patrons will enjoy being outside and interacting with plant life, while older patrons can (literally) reap the rewards of their hard work in our garden. Anything produced by the garden will be given to those who attend Roots & Readers.

 

This year, we plan on starting a pollinator garden with marigolds and wildflowers. This is something we didn’t have last year, so we are very excited to see how it goes. In the garden beds, we plan to grow tomatoes, squash, peppers, and pumpkins. We are keeping our fingers crossed that we are able to grow watermelons as well!

 

We held our Indoor Planting Day on April 26 and planted the seeds that we hope will grow into sprouts strong enough to be transplanted into our garden beds. Any seedlings that don't make it into the garden from the Indoor Planting Day will be given out at Roots & Readers for patrons to take home. 

 

We had a lot of fun and success in our Community Garden all season long last year and are looking forward to an even better and more bountiful year this year! We would love your help in making our Community Garden as lively as possible. To see dates for all the upcoming Roots & Readers programs, please visit our website at bplwv.org/events.