Yates County Community Garden

The Cornell Cooperative Extension of Yates County offers a community raised bed garden to any resident who wants to grow a garden for the season. There are 60 beds available that are weeded and prepared by the Master gardeners in Yates County for the Community Garden.

Beds are prepped in the spring with a layer of mushroom compost most springs + a layer of cardboard and mulch. Beds that are rented are prepped by the person who has rented them unless they sign up late in the season. Any unoccupied beds are cared for by the Master gardeners and used to grow food, herbs and flowers for the Keuka Food Pantry. Last year, they donated over 100 pounds of food to the pantry. 

They get their mushroom compost from Hornings and also make their own compost at the garden with a great deal of help from volunteer Tom Gibson and Cheryl Flynn, Master Gardener Volunteer Coordinator. Volunteers collect compost from restaurants and coffee shops around the community.

Water, compost and top dressings are all available to use at the site; an 8-foot fence keeps the dear and rodents out. Local volunteers mow in-between every garden bed weekly.

The SWEAP program comes in and works to help clean up the garden in the spring and fall most years. This is a program run by the sheriff’s department that allows for people convicted of non-violent crimes to work out in the community on weekends under the supervision of a sheriff’s deputy.

Every winter, Cheryl Flynn writes to various seed distributors and requests donations. They received seeds from Seedway and Hornings Greenhouse this year and have also received seeds from Bejo Seeds and Fruition Seeds in previous years. Caroline Bountard-Hunt, Agricultural Educator for Cornell Cooperative Extension, produces a month newsletter, "Gardening Matters," and gives educational classes open to the community for better gardening practices.

ACGC members with our seed donation

ACGC recently donated over 200 packs of seeds to the Yates County Community Garden, and Master gardeners planted them. The seeds were collected at the Shirley Menace Horticulture Convention in Denver, Colorado. Donated seeds included fruits and vegetables (onions, lettuce, peppers, tomato, melons, zucchini, squash, eggplant, swiss chard, corn, cauliflower, beans, Herbs) as well as a variety of annual flower seeds.