We are proud to announce that the Bean Bag project is off to a very successful start, however, it is not over yet.  We want to see what you’ve done and to see your bags’ progress.  Just as important, we will also be notifying you shortly of how we will be handling the donation process of a specific portion of your harvest.  I have also again attached the care instructions of your bag to this email for your convenience.

Finally, it is with great excitement, that I announce the formal launch of our public outreach initiative.  As I have mentioned above, we want you to share with us, and the rest of the community, what you have growing.  How will you do this? In concurrence with this email, we are going public with an Instagram account @bdavidgarden (https://instagram.com/bdavidgarden?igshid=152nvzgw69lz2) as well as a website (https://sites.google.com/view/bdavidgarden/home)!  With these tools, you will be able to connect with other participants and help us spread our roots throughout our congregation, and share out the fruits of our labor to the community at large.

Thank you again for joining us in this project and in taking the first step towards a brick-and-mortar community garden and towards making Beth David a greener synagogue.

As always, please reach out with any questions.

Best Wishes and Happy Growing,

Step One – Receive Your Bean Bag

Your grow bag is made of landscape cloth, which will come with all the components you need to do square foot gardening for bush beans.

Step Two – Fill Your Bean Bag

Fill your bag with the lightweight soil provided. Help the soil settle by lightly pressing it down. No additional fertilizer is required at this point.

Step Three – Plant Your Beans

You have 9 seeds to plant in the bag. If you’d like you can soak them overnight in warm water to speed germination (this is optional—they will grow regardless).

Once the soil is in place, space out your 9 beans equally in the bag (you can use a ruler if you like but you probably don’t need it). For each bean, make a small hole about 1½ inches deep. Place each bean in the hole and cover it with soil. Place your bag in full sun and water the bag thoroughly.

Step Four – Finishing Touches

Decorate your plant stake and record the planting date on it. Be as creative as you can. Take a picture of your finished product and send it to us. Send us as many pictures as you like, we want to make this a virtually interactive experience with all of our excellent growers!

Care Instructions – Make Your Garden Grow

In order for the seeds to germinate, the soil needs to be kept moist (not soggy).

You can expect to see green growth emerging from the soil in about 1-2 weeks.

Bush beans do not need any support to stay upright.

Keep the bag in the sun and make sure the plants get at least 2-3 inches of water (from rain or by hand) each week.

Keep an eye on your bag; landscape cloth does not retain water the way the ground does, so when the soil gets dry or plants start to wilt, water thoroughly until the water comes through the landscape cloth at the bottom.

We’ve provided additional plant fertilizer to add in about 30 days.

WATCH YOUR BEANS GROW!!!

Harvest

Your beans should be ready to pick in about 55-60 days. You can harvest them when they are about 3” long (if left on the vine too long they won’t taste as good).

Instructions for donating half your harvest will follow!