YDR Insider

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Posted by YDR Insider Behind the scenes, Office Life, Smart

Introducing The Container Garden Chronicles

The YDR picnic area
This is where we plan to put our container garden. It's the picnic area behind the York Newspaper Company building in West Manchester Township.

While making Smart magazine, Samantha Dellinger and I often have crazy ideas.

Usually, Sam comes up with a fantastic visual idea that becomes my quest to create. One time, she wanted to have ballerinas model formal dresses on the stage of The Strand-Capitol Performing Arts Center in York. After dozens of phone calls, we made it happen.

Our latest idea has turned into a project that Jess Krout has dubbed The Container Garden Chronicles.

The idea was born when Sam and I were discussing ideas for the “Home” section of Smart. Sam suggested doing a story on container gardens. I liked the idea, and we started to ponder how we would illustrate the story. Sometimes, photo illustrations work best in these situations, which would require us to set up the shot. We would need to gather the containers, soil, tools, seeds and more.

We hope to add to the vegetation already blooming behind the office. I learned today that these little blue flowers are called Glory-of-the-snow or Chionodoxa.

If we were going to go to all that trouble, I thought, why not actually make a container garden that we grow at work?

From there, I asked the York Daily Record features staff members, who contribute to Smart magazine and smartmagpa.com, if they would like to create a container garden with us.

I received a resounding, “Yes!”

So, I had an idea and a team to carry it out. The next part was getting permission.

I worked my way through all the channels to get the OK to plant a garden on our campus. Everyone said to go for it.

So far, the CGC team is Leigh Zaleski, Jess Krout, Sarah Chain, April Trotter, Sam and me, but it’s open to any staffer who wants to participate. All you need is the desire to grow stuff, your own containers, some seeds and/or plants and the desire to blog about your experience. (Email keberle@ydr.com if you’re interested.) UPDATE: Courtney Cashour will be joining us on the journey and maybe Abby Rhoad, too.

Right now, we’re in the planning phase. Leigh is working on her seedlings at home. I raided my mom’s stash of seeds yesterday. And Sarah went to a GardenWise seminar to learn all she could to make sure our gardens are bountiful.

We also have a mentor, York County Master Gardener PK Dennis, who has agreed to guide us along the way.

We’ll post about our gardening experience at smartmagpa.com throughout the spring, summer and fall. Stay tuned to see who has a greenest thumb.