Community garden expansion completed
By BECKY THOMAS
Staff Reporter
More than two years ago Cheney Community Garden leaders Carl Ruud and Jon Ballester went to the Park Board to ask for help expanding water lines at the garden. There was demand for more garden plots, they said, but a lack of resources to fix the current irrigation system and extend it to serve the new plots.
Parks workers finished the water line extension last week, shortly after Ruud's unexpected death.
Ballester, the garden organization's secretary/treasurer, has taken over leadership of the group. It won't be too difficult, since the gardeners are “loosely organized,” he quoted from the membership agreement Ruud had written. Nevertheless, there are challenges to face now that Ruud is gone, he said.
“Carl was the president but he was like the whole board of directors,” Ballester said.
Ballester said the community garden, located adjacent to Centennial Park and on city property, will continue to operate largely as it has since its beginnings in the 1970s.
Gardeners pay a $30 flat fee for a 20-by-40 foot garden plot—the fee covers the cost of irrigation—to grow and maintain their own plants, donating a portion of the harvest to the Cheney Food Bank.
The water lines were extended using a portion of a grant from the Empire Health Foundation given to the Let's Move, Cheney coalition. Parks and Recreation director Paul Simmons said they would spend between $1,000-$1,500 of the grant on the equipment and labor that went into the project.
Now that the water line has been expanded, the garden has potential for at least eight more plots, bringing the total to around 33. But before the new plots can be planted, Ballester needs to find a fearless local farmer or anyone with a disc harrow to till up the rocky soil.
“It could get bumpy,” he said, adding that car-sized rocks were supposedly removed from the ground when the current garden plots were excavated.
While local gardeners are still adjusting to the loss of Ruud and his leadership, his memory may become a permanent part of the community garden that he put so much time and effort into.
The Park Board last week approved a resolution to name the garden after Ruud, pending conformity with park naming rules and City Council approval.
Whether or not the renaming comes to fruition, Ballester noted another legacy Ruud left behind, the evergreen trees he planted years ago along the trail that edges the garden. Now tall, the trees will provide shade for generations of future community gardeners.
Becky Thomas can be reached at [email protected].
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