Gardening: Community gardens should plan safe experience during pandemic

We’ve had some beautiful sunny weather over the past couple of weeks that has been good for our cooped-up spirits. The downside is that it has been pretty cold with frosts and low temperatures in the mid-20s. Hardy vegetable transplants like spinach, cabbage and lettuce can handle the cold but it slows down seed germination. So, patience is in order.

As it warms up community gardens will be coming to life. We now have over 60 gardens scattered around Spokane County, and those are the ones we know about. This year life is going to be different in those gardens with the novel coronavirus lurking around. Here are a few suggestions for being safe in the garden.

Each garden should have a plan in place to ensure social distancing and the management of shared tools, faucets and anything else used by multiple people. Gardeners should stay 6 feet apart which might necessitate not gardening in boxes right next to each other. If the garden boxes are numbered maybe the gardeners in odd numbered boxes can garden in the morning and those in even ones can come in the afternoon or evening. If your garden gets a lot of visitors, it may be necessary to close the garden to just the gardeners for the time being. Here is a tough one: Kids should stay close to their family’s box instead of exploring the garden.

Set up a hand-washing station at the entrance to the garden and have people wash their hands when they come into and leave the garden. The station can be a water cooler with a spigot, and roll of paper towels and soap that are stocked daily. Water from the spigot should go into a 5-gallon bucket that is emptied away from the boxes.

Communal tools like shovels, rakes, hand trowels and water spigot handles should be wiped down with a bleach solution between users. The bleach mixture should be 5 tablespoons of bleach to a gallon of water and applied with a spray bottle. Handles should be left wet and allowed to dry. Experts don’t recommend using hand sanitizer, especially homemade mixes because they aren’t as effective on the virus in this situation. Vinegar is not an option.

Community gatherings in the garden should be put off until this crazy time is over. This is hard because social interactions between gardeners are an integral part of being in a community garden. Put your energies into planning a big bash when we’ve been given the all-clear to gather again.

This will all take some planning by garden organizations. Fortunately, we are a few weeks out from the full start of the season so there is time. Developing a plan will help set up expectations for everyone.

If you need more resources, the Western Regional Center to Enhance Food Safety has a fact sheet with more details on staying safe in a community garden that can be printed and posted in the garden. Check it out at https://bit.ly/2V8dcqd.