Claim Your Community Garden Plot in Red Bank

Though the finest operational details are still being ironed out between council and the Red Bank Community Garden Committee – now being lead by open space activist Cindy Burnham – plots for the borough’s expected community garden are now available for lease, the group recently announced.

The site of the garden is an empty plot between two homes on Marion Street on the east side of Red Bank, removed from the and nearly as a counter-offer. With a stalemate between the gardeners and the council over the proposed location continuing for more than a year, it was finally decided that it was Marion Street or nothing for the community garden.

Now, with fall rapidly approaching and the gardeners having missed out on all of 2011’s growing season and not enough time to prepare for the remainder of 2012’s, the goal now is to be ready to plant by as early as March 1 of next year.

According to the list of membership rules and responsibilities attached to the gardening application, the growing season will be opened each day from 8 a.m. to dusk between March 1 and Nov. 15. Plots must be regularly maintained, which means watered and weeded, among other requirements, and should be planted all season long.

All plots are distributed at a first-come, first-serve basis.

To help cover the costs of maintaining fencing and water – the community garden will use the borough’s water supply though water will not be supplied to the garden for free – the fee to lease a plot at the garden is $25 per season plus a one-time startup fee of $25. Available plot sizes, according to flier presented by the community gardeners, are 4 feet by 10 feet, 4 feet by 15 feet or smaller.

Interested parties should call the Red Bank Community Garden Committee at 732-241-9532 or 732-747-2017 for more information. Burnham can be reached by email at njcinnie@aol.com.