Starting in May

Community Garden Application and flyer click here:

BEVERLY COMMUNITY GARDEN

The Beverly Community Garden will be looking for gardeners for the 2020 growing season.

Beverly City Organic Community Garden Rules

Contact: City of Beverly at 609-747-4084

Located at the corner of Penn and Magnolia streets in Beverly City on the old baseball field. The plots are available to Burlington County residents as a one-year rental. Residents interested in renting a plot must abide by the rules set forth by the city of Beverly and the Community Garden. Renters who do not abide by these rules will be asked to relinquish their garden. The renters must sign and pay for the one-year agreement to rent their garden before any ground breaking may take place. Please read the following rules before you sign the contract and/or fill out the application.

Plots are rented per season, the location of your plot will be staked out and specified by the city coordinator. The plots are approximately 120 square feet and the cost is $20. The first name to appear on the Community Garden application signed at the time of rental is considered the “primary gardener”. All gardeners listed on the application are collectively and severally bound by the rules. Any new gardeners must be added to the application and may do so by contacting the City of Beverly. No more than 3 plots may be rented by any group and such will be based on availability on a first come first served basis. A waiting list will be maintained.
Organic gardens must be maintained by renter on a regular basis. No chemicals or pesticides may be used in the gardens except those deemed USDA organic. No GMO corn or GMO soy (or any other crop from GMO seed) may be grown in the organic garden.
The garden is open from day break until dark. The gardens are closed after dark and no one is permitted to be there.
Gardeners may keep tools in their gardens and may erect fences around their gardens.
Gardeners may not use any poisons or attempt to kill any squirrels, rabbits or any wildlife by any means or they will be asked to vacate the premises immediately.
If a gardener does not abide by these rules or is in anyway derelict and is asked to leave the garden, their payment will not be returned.
Any children under the age of 16 must be accompanied by an adult at all times.

The Beverly Community Garden is a Member of the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA).

The community garden is looking for donations of organic plant food, a lockable shed, gardening tools, watering cans and fencing. For more information about the gardens click here: http://thecityofbeverly.com/environmental

The Garden in 2018

Sunset and Sunflower photos by Ramona Moreno

Fall Clean Up Scheduled

The Clean Communities Committee has scheduled a city-wide clean up on Oct. 14 from 9 a.m. until noon. Everyone is asked to help in any way that they can with the clean-up. You can clean up your own block or help a neighbor by cleaning up in front of their house or you can join the group that will meet at the Broad Street playground where bags and tools will be provided

Refreshments will be provided before the clean-up and a pizza lunch will be provided at noon for the volunteers.

Nonprofit groups may sign up to help and earn up to a $250 grant for their group. cLICK HERE FOR APPLICATION Clean-Community-Registration_Packet-2017

The rain date is Oct. 21. For more information, contact Jackie Bryan at 609-387-1509.

**The County Clean Communities Program is part of a statewide comprehensive strategy to clean up and prevent litter on beaches, parks, streets, recreation areas, construction sites, cities and towns. The Clean Communities Act provides grants to municipalities and counties for litter pickup and removal programs. This money results from the taxation of litter-generating products at the manufacturing, wholesale, distribution and retail levels.

The approach is a three-fold attack on litter:

*Clean Up: promoting public lands cleanup programs by community volunteers.

*Enforcement: adoption and enforcement of anti-littering laws.

*Education: establishing an education program within the community for adults and children. This office has a slide presentation and video available for education purposes.

City Mini-Grants:Funds are made available to non-profit agencies/groups to clean up targeted city parks and roadways. Grant awards are dependent on the number of volunteers.

Nonprofit groups can earn up to $250 for their group by participating. Click here for the grant application: clean-community-registration_packet-2016

New Jersey’s Community Newspaper of the Year

April 21, 2016

Make your yard and garden ‘Jersey-friendly’

Posted: Tuesday, April 12, 2016 6:00 am

By Michele S. Byers

Spring is here, and garden centers are filled with a mind-boggling array of flowers, shrubs and trees. You are already envisioning how great your yard and garden will look.

But before you choose your plants, do your homework to make sure they are Jersey-friendly.

You may not realize this, but many garden center plants have been introduced from other continents and can be extremely harmful to our state’s native plants.

These “alien invasives” not only thrive here, but also can spread aggressively. Eventually, they crowd out native plants needed by wildlife and pollinators, resulting in a poorer environment with less animal and plant diversity.

So what to plant in your yard and garden — and what to avoid?

According to the New Jersey Invasive Species Strike Team, many of the worst offenders have been landscaping staples for years: Chinese and Japanese wisteria, Japanese clematis, English ivy, Japanese honeysuckle, porcelainberry, Norway maple, Callery/Bradford pear, winged burning bush, wintercreeper, Japanese barberry, butterfly bush, Linden viburnum, Japanese meadowsweet and Chinese silvergrass. It’s best to avoid all of them.

What to plant instead for a beautiful yard and a healthy environment? A new program called Jersey-Friendly Yards makes it easy to decide. Its website, www.jerseyyards.org, is presented by the Barnegat Bay Partnership and has many helpful features, including an extensive plant database and an online tool, to help you design a landscape plan.

The plant database lists hundreds of trees, shrubs and flowers that are native to New Jersey, as well as plants that are not native but aren’t harmful because they don’t aggressively spread.

Here are some examples of beneficial plants: flowering dogwood, white fringetree, persimmon, American holly, spicebush, serviceberry, Eastern columbine, butterfly weed, purple coneflower, beebalm, cardinal flower, black-eyed Susan, Virginia bluebells and wild geranium.

The website’s “Interactive Yard” tool provides step-by-step instructions for making your property the healthiest possible environment. For instance, it provides advice on removing impervious surfaces, getting rid of invasive plants, adding beds around the house, harvesting rainwater, attracting pollinators, and starting a vegetable garden.

The Jersey-Friendly Yards program was developed by the Barnegat Bay Partnership with a grant from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

The partnership, composed of more than 30 organizations and agencies, has been working for years to improve water quality in Barnegat Bay. The bay, like many rivers in New Jersey, is threatened by runoff water filled with fertilizers, sediment and trash.

A critical part of the organization’s efforts involves reducing “people pollution” carried from yards into waterways through stormwater runoff. Jersey-Friendly Yards is the latest of many initiatives designed to educate the public.

“In my mind, the future of conservation is going to be in our yards,” said Karen Walzer, of the Barnegat Bay Partnership. “If we start with our own yards, it will go a long way for conservation in New Jersey.”

This spring, make sure your yard and garden are Jersey-friendly. Visit the website and take advantage of all the great advice assembled there.

For more information about preserving the state’s land and natural resources, visit the New Jersey Conservation Foundation website, www.njconservation.org.

Michele S. Byers is executive director of the New Jersey Conservation Foundation. Email her at info@njconservation.org