Our 132 Rental Plots are each 10’ x 10’ in size, with excellent organic soil, a sunny location, a deer fence, and a convenient water supply — plus a unique opportunity to meet and learn from fellow gardeners.
Annual rental rate:
$40 per 10’x 10′ plot for Yarmouth residents
$43 for non-residents
Register for plots:
You can sign-up in person at Yarmouth Community Services, by phone at 846-2406, or online @yarmouthcommunityservices.org. If you have any questions about rental plots,
please contact the rental plot coordinator, Denise Compton or call 846-9002
YCG 2023 RENTAL PLOT GUIDELINES
What We Supply:
- Deer fence
- Compost – one small red wheelbarrow load per plot
- Watering system complete with hoses and nozzles
- Spring tilling by request only
- Tools and wheelbarrows for borrowing
- Row cover (a lightweight fabric to protect specific young seedlings)
- Beehives
- Hay bales for mulch (for a nominal fee)
- Lots of advice and garden wisdom
- Garden Greetings email updates about workdays, garden pests, and other useful information
Inside the Renters’ Shed:
- Useful items like pens, scissors, and trowels are on the inside of the shed door.
- Seed swap – if you have extra seeds you can’t use, tuck the packet in a pocket on the
- Lost and found.
- Tools for borrowing.
- Steering Committee contact information.
- Clipboard where you will record volunteer hours.
- Renters’ plot map labeled with plot number and renters’ names.
- Bulletin board for garden information and a sign-up sheet for mowing. The bulletin board is located in the shed on the left-hand side.
Service Hours:
Each renter is expected to volunteer in the community plot or children’s garden over the course of the growing season. Required number of volunteer hours: 1 plot-6 hours; 2 plots-10 hours; 3 plots-12 hours; and 4 plots-14 hours. There are many opportunities to volunteer and jobs for every ability level. Please remember to record all your hours on sheets located in the renters’ shed, even after you have met your required number of hours. Please contact our coordinators, Denise Compton, Christine Slader or Mary Wickland if you have questions.
Potluck Dinners:
Our monthly potluck dinners are held in June, July and August. Specific dates TBD and advertised.
Harvest Dinner:
Our annual fundraiser is an October dinner at the high school which is open to Yarmouth residents, friends and the surrounding community. We will determine whether to go forward with the dinner in 2022 as the season progresses based on up-to-date COVID -19 guidelines. Volunteer hours at the dinner cannot be used to fulfill service hour requirements.
Please Remember:
- Be a good neighbor: the foundation for our rental plot guidelines.
- There is no smoking in the gardens or parking areas. Tobacco mosaic virus, which can be carried on hands, is a serious threat to tomatoes and other plants.
- No pets are allowed in the gardens.
- Please monitor small children so they don’t damage neighbors’ plots.
- Please close and latch the gate when you enter and exit the fenced garden areas.
- Turn off the hose when you have finished watering your plot.
- If you see a water leak in a hose or at a spigot, please contact someone on the steering committee immediately.
- Weeds and garden refuse go in a pile in front of the concrete barrier near the locked shed, and not in the trash barrels.
- Please harvest your vegetables when they are ripe and ready. If you are not able to do so, let a garden neighbor or steering committee member know. We will gladly harvest them and add it to the weekly community plot distribution on Tuesday and Saturday mornings.
- We rely heavily on email to communicate garden news. If you are not receiving emails, please contact Denise Compton by phone at 207-846-9002.
- Like us on Facebook and check us out on Instagram.
Getting Started:
- Plots must be started by June 1. If you have not started your plot by June 15, we reserve the right to reassign that plot to someone on our waiting list, or to use the plot to grow vegetables for donation. We are here to support all gardeners; please stay in touch. Contact Denise Compton, rental plot coordinator with any concerns.
Plot Design:
- All structures and/or plantings should not create shade on your neighbor’s plot at any time throughout the growing season.
- Wood chips should not be used in your plot for maintaining pathways or in any other way. Wood chips are for the community plot walkways only.
- Hay, straw or leaves can be used for pathways. Place newspaper or paper bags under the hay, straw or leaves for weed control.
- Be aware that vine plants such as pumpkins and winter squash take up a lot of room. Please be careful that the vines do not grow into pathways and neighboring plots.
- Be careful about invasives. For example, if you plant mint, put it in a pot and sink the pot so it can be entirely removed at the end of the season.
- Raised beds can be built, but the structures need to be removed in the fall unless you will be returning to the same plot(s) next season.
- The use of chicken wire, pressure treated wood, painted wood or other treated wood is prohibited.
- Perennials may be planted, but must be removed in the fall unless you will be returning to the same plot next season.
Plot Maintenance:
- Buy quality seedlings. Bumbleroot Farms, Estabrooks, Allen Sterling & Lothrop, and Skillins Greenhouse offer good options for purchasing seedlings. Try to avoid purchasing from big box stores.
- Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Fedco, and Pinetree Garden Seeds are also good options for purchasing seeds.
- Mark your plot boundaries so you don’t spill over into a neighbor’s plot, with the yellow plastic tape found in the renters’ shed. Please do not use twine as it is too hard to see once things begin to grow and will tangle in the mower. Measure your plot (it should be 10’x10′) and reclaim any lost garden area if grass has encroached into your plot.
- Plots need to be well-tended throughout the season, including weeding, pest control and harvesting.
- Our soil is quite sandy and can dry out quickly. It’s important to water, especially when seedlings are young or newly planted seeds.
- Cover your cucumber and squash seedlings with row cover to help prevent squash and cucumber beetles. Please check your plants regularly for bugs and remove/squish them. Remove the row cover when the plants begin to flower. Greens and kale can also be covered with row cover to help prevent flea beetles.
- If your plot is wet, avoid walking all over it. Soil is supposed to be 25% air. Walking on wet soil will compact it, making it difficult for roots to grow. Plan walkways within your plot so you can avoid stepping on planted areas. It will also give you room to harvest and weed.
- Consider which hose you’ll use to water your plants, and if necessary, put sturdy stakes on the corners of your plot to serve as hose “guides” to protect your plants.
- Black plastic or weed cloth can be used to control weeds. It must be removed at the end of the season, unless you are returning to the same plot next season.
- Think about planting lettuce seeds, other greens, radishes, and beans in two or three plantings several weeks apart. You can also start another round of greens in late summer for harvest in early fall when temperatures begin to drop.
- When you plant, add some compost and a slow-release organic fertilizer. Or you can side-dress once the plants have emerged and again later in the planting season. Add the compost right where you are planting, and not in pathways.
- Please do not use the compost from the transfer station.
- Plots must be cleaned up of all leftover plant material, structures, plastic tape and stones used for edging or design by mid-October.
Spring Tilling:
Plots will be hand tilled by request only. Please email Denise Compton if you would like your plot tilled or have questions.
Acceptable products for an organic garden:
The Yarmouth Community Garden is organic, but your plants and seeds don’t have to be. Here is a list of acceptable and unacceptable fertilizers/soil amendments, pest control products and mulches.
Acceptable fertilizers/soil amendments:
- Liquid fish fertilizer such as Neptune’s Harvest
- Fish meal, bone meal, sulfur, wood ash
- PRO GRO
- Rock powder lime, rock phosphate, greensand
- Organic Garden-tone products
Acceptable pest control products:
- Insecticidal soap
- BT
- NEEM
- Pyrethrum
- Garlic, Hot pepper, coffee grounds, “kitchen mixes”
- Diatomaceous earth
- Soil inoculants (powder or liquid form found at Paris Farmers Union)
Acceptable mulches:
- Seaweed
- Shredded leaves
- Salt marsh hay
- Untreated grass clippings
- Hay or straw
- Newspaper or brown paper grocery bag (underneath the mulch)
Unacceptable products:
- Miracle Gro, Miracid, Peters, etc.
- 5-10-5, 5-10-10 and variations
- Rotenone
- Sevin
- Diaxonnin
- Malathion
- Methoxychior
- Commercial slug baits
- Copper
- Sabadilla
- Chemical formulations
Yarmouth Community Garden 