For those who may not know, I am one of the founders of the Garland Community Garden.  April 24 marks the beginning of our 10th year in existence. We've had our ups and downs and in celebration of our survival, we are really going all out to make the garden special for 2023. So far Charlie and I have hauled and unloaded six cubic yards of rich garden soil from Plano and still have four more cubic yards to go.  The mission of our nonprofit organization, Loving Garland Green, is to encourage Garland residents to grow some of the food they eat, thus this year we are putting many how-to signs throughout the garden.

 

A local girl scout troop back in December helped to beautify our children's garden area by adding painted rocks with wise messages. I have made signs for places all over the garden. One of the most recent ones I finished just last night. This one is for our two pollinator beds. These are laminated pieces that are super glued onto a wooden board. We'll see how it stands up to the weather.

 

Several of the signs I have up already provide "How-to" information for gardeners: 1) Two signs telling visitors how to make an eight 5-gallon bucket holder for their urban garden. 2) Two signs that tell visitors all about potatoes and how to make a potato tower. 3) One sign that provides tips for taking care of potatoes 4) One sign that provides tips for organic pest control.There are more to come. For example, when I get Gene's keyhole garden made, I'll post a sign telling visitors how to make one of their own.

The mission of our nonprofit organization, Loving Garland Green, is to encourage Garland residents to grow some of the food they eat. We hope the signs as well as the living examples will encourage the citizens of Garland to grow some of the food they eat. The more food grown by local residents in any community helps to stabilize their economy. Yes, resilient, local food systems help to make communities more stable. One of the qualities of a sustainable community is a reliable food supply that optimizes local production.

 

The signs are fun to make. 1. Create them first on your computer. I use legal size paper and no smaller type than 14 pt for easy reading. 2. Once you have created them, take a usb to a printing place and have one copy in color made. Tell the worker that you want it laminated in the heaviest gauge of lamination they have. (It should be quite stiff. 3. You can then use Gorilla tape to attach to a one x 2 inch; 6 foot stake or a PVC pole.

 

When attaching, you want to be careful not to poke a hole, even with a stapler through the lamination that has any part of your poster because one hard rain will get water onto the paper of your poster and it will eventually mold. If you must staple through the poster, you might try. putting a dab of clear coat fingernail polish over the staple. This might seal it. For the pollinators I cut out for my pollinator poster I put clear coat fingernail polish around all the edges of each cut out. We'll see if that works.