TJMS Community Garden Volunteer Policy
Community volunteers help TJMS meet the needs of S. Arlington families with our produce donations to local food pantries. We can't do it without you! In the 2023 garden season, we donated over fifteen hundred pounds of fresh produce from the garden. It was a lot of work, and we couldn't have done it without our volunteers.
TJ families, neighbors, and community volunteers are invited to join us on Saturday mornings from 9-11 AM. It's a great opportunity to get fresh air, learn about gardening, and spend time with our friends and neighbors. All ages are welcome, but children under 6th grade must be accompanied by a responsible adult. No need to sign up, just show up ready to garden. Wear sunscreeen and weather and mud appropriate clothes and shoes, and bring a water bottle. We will have gloves and tools to use.
We also welcome corporate volunteer workdays, National Honor Society volunteers, scout troops, and any other volunteer group that would like to join us. If you're interested in setting up a special workday just for your group, please send an email to tjmsoutside@gmail.com.
Parking:
If you need accessible parking, set your map address to: 125 S Old Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22204 There are 4 spaces for cars with disabled parking placards in this small lot adjacent to the garden.
Additional parking is available at the TJ Community Center, so set your map address to: 3501 2nd St S, Arlington, VA 22204.
If the Community Center parking is full, on weekends volunteers are welcome to park in the Fleet Elementary staff garage. It's slightly off the edge of the map below-- aim for the Accessible Parking area by setting your map address to 125 S Old Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22204 and from the access road just past Fleet, turn into the garage structure. (It's basically underneath the red bubble for Accessible Parking on the map below.)
See the map below for how to find the parking lots and how to walk to the garden:
Volunteer News and Pictures
Somehow the camera stayed in the pocket all workday, except for this attempt to document taming the tomato jungle. Early in the season, we surgically pruned these tomatoes to keep them airy and open, and picked some of the biggest tomatoes I’ve ever seen growing on a plant. Then the spider mites hit, we sprayed them down with fish/sesame oil, and put up shade cloth to prevent leaf burn. The spider mites disappeared, but the plants got leggy fast in the shade. (Due to vacation schedules, the cloth stayed up a bit too long.) Then when we took down the shade cloth, the plants exploded into bushy regrowth within a week or two. Which is great! But suddenly we had to figure out how to open them back up a bit without taking out too many leaves or baby tomatoes. It’s going to take a while longer for us to finish, starting with the remaining yellowing or brown leaves, leaves too close to the ground, branches that are so tangled from not being tied up fast enough that they grew into a corkscrew. Retying where possible to open up the inside of the plant without cutting too much. Looking at the first attempt, and realizing that pruning tomatoes is a little like cutting your own bangs, and you probably went a little too short, but you’ve still got a dozen and a half more to practice on, so you might get it perfect before you’re done. #volunteer #workday See you back in the garden Tuesday evening 6:30-7:30, and you can learn how to prune tomatoes, too. ... See MoreSee Less
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