How Did Our Gardens Grow? The Story of Gay-Kimball Library’s Community/Pollinator Garden Project
The Beginning: Planning and Preparation!
On April 8th, 2026, Erin George, Director of the Gay-Kimball Library, met with members and volunteers of the Cheshire County Conservation District for a site visit to learn how best to proceed with the pollinator garden project funded through the Conservation Opportunity Fund and an additional community garden project.
Cheshire County conservation experts walked the library property and advised Erin on the best location for these gardens, including how to kill the grass, planting timing, and other helpful resources along the way.
At the time, little did everyone know this walkthrough was the start to not only planting the seeds for pollinator plantings, but also planting seeds for a beautiful community project!
Left to Right Image Credit: Gay-Kimball Library. Before photos for pollinator and community garden locations.
The day following this walkthrough, it was go time. Quickly jumping into action, meetings commenced with the Troy Conservation Commission and the local Girl Scouts to begin the process of engaging the town community and creating something beautiful! The Girl Scouts excitedly committed to creating hummingbird feeders for the pollinator garden and contributing to gardening, while members of the Conservation Commission and the local landscaper committed to helping with trimming and plant maintenance. The local landscaper finalized the garden locations based on the group's recommendations from the day before!
Next step? Preparing the garden beds and collecting supplies! Volunteers began stripping tape and ink from cardboard, preparing it to be used as mulch for the pollinator garden bed. The process of planning community events structured around the gardens was also underway, including a BioBlitz and Summer Reading Event called “Plant a Seed: Read”, scheduled for June 2026, furthering the ever-growing community involvement! Gardening supplies began to arrive, ready and eager to be put to use!
Last year's summer reading project, “Kimball the Snake” took on a new lease of life as volunteers and local kids began to collect the painted rocks to be repurposed as weights to hold down the cardboard mulch. Each rock served as a reminder of the continued community building the Gay-Kimball Library fosters through the years. On the same day, the two container gardens for growing vegetables within the community garden arrived, and beautiful information signs were painted!
Left to Right Image Credit: Gay-Kimball Library. Cleaned carboard (left), handmade pollinator signs (middle), and collection of painted rocks (right).
Installation: A Community Effort!
The day had arrived, and it was time to start mulching. With twenty-plus Storytime kids aged two to seven years old, and their parents, there certainly was no lack of enthusiasm! Following the pledge of allegiance and a reading of the book “Goodnight Veggies”, the kids learned about fruits, vegetables, and pollinators! As the day progressed, cardboard was laid down, mulched, and sprayed. Kimball the Snake began his new role as “cardboard crusher” as each painted rock was laid out across the cardboard with a buzz of excitement. All the hard work would soon shape into a pollinator haven! A week later, a library patron volunteered to remove the rocks, relieving Kimball the snake of his role, and spread compost over the cardboard in preparation for mulch. Kimball the snake was later used to border the pollinator garden!
Just in time for Earth Day, a special Storytime was held by inviting a special guest in to help get the seeds started for the gardens. Ruth, known to the library kids as “Nans” or “Nana,” came in to teach the kids about seeds. The kids planted sunflowers and transplanted tomatoes into pods where they continued to grow in the library conference room over the next few weeks. The Storytime kids and the Girl Scouts took the initiative and continued to plant and care for the plants weekly using the pods, potting soil, and other resources left by Nana. The conference room had transformed into it’s own Gay-Kimball Library greenhouse! A local teen volunteer also came in and helped plant cauliflower, lettuce, eggplant, and peas into the starter pods. This lovely endeavor also allowed the replacement of a patron's tomatoes she had lost to frost, reinforcing what community gardening is all about!
The installation of the two ten-foot container gardens also commenced Earth Day week. They were placed along the back of the library, lined with cardboard and filled with two truckloads of soil. Books such as “The Bad Seed” and “Growing Together,” and guides such as “Burpee Companion Guide,” continued to be read to the Storytime kids! Garden designs began to come to fruition as the kids participated in an activity where they learned about companion planting and how different plants grown together can either benefit or poison each other. In preparation for the official May Groundbreaking and Planting Day, a visual map was created of the gardens, and using what was learned about companion planting, plant locations were determined. Plant markers were created by the local Girl Scout troop. Tools and fencing were researched by several library patrons to be purchased. Additional research on cost for plugs, bulbs, and established plants was also well in motion in preparation for the pollinator garden!
Left to Right Image Credit: Gay-Kimball Library. Planning map for garden beds (left), kids creating companion planting collages (middle), and the two garden containers installed along the building (right).
After a very rainy Memorial Day weekend, Mr. Kyle came out at the end of the day on Memorial Day to pull up 100 square feet of sod for the vegetable part of our garden! This was in preparation for our long-awaited DUMP TRUCK DAY! With perfect weather, our Storytime crew, curious patrons, volunteers, and library staff gathered to listen to Mr. Kyle read before he dumped big Black and Gold Compost! Next, the kids took turns making their "own dump truck runs" to the garden plot to fill up the new garden with compost! In two hours, and with a lot of laughs, not only was there a new garden space, but everyone's hands and faces were covered with almost as much dirt as great memories were made! Later in the day, volunteers and staff put up a fence, worked together to plant pollinators in the pollinator bed, and cleaned up as Mr. Kyle replanted sod
around the library property to spruce things up!
Left to Right Image Credit: Gay-Kimball Library. Mr. Kyle reading a book by the dump truck (left) and kids filling toy dump trucks with soil (middle and right).
After a delay due to weather, the time finally came to plant “Gay-Kimball Library greenhouse” seedlings in the ground! Months later… well, the pictures speak for themselves!
Left to Right Image Credit: Nina Branwen, CCCD. After photos of both community garden and pollinator garden (left), just community garden (middle), and just pollinator garden (right).
Next steps and the Community Impact Moving Forward!
As the days went on, the garden was blossoming, and with each step in the process, the Troy community continued to show up to help maintain, educate, and care for the gardens. Kids learned about different pollinators and different plants. They enthusiastically began to name the fruiting bodies of vegetables as they began to appear! Each growing vegetable already had an awaited purpose of feeding the local community free of charge! Meanwhile, the pollinators similarly feasted on the newly installed pollinator Garden, leaving no person or pollinator lacking!
As a celebration of the hard work and as an example of the many spectacular community events to come, on July 15th, the Gay-Kimball Library hosted “Toad Tea with Miss MaryLee in the Garden”. This event invited the Storytime kids to enjoy an elegant tea party, listen to stories written by Miss MaryLee, and create toad puppets surrounded by the blossoming gardens! This event also invited back the Cheshire County Conservation District to take pictures with the official Conservation Opportunity Fund Banner. It was the perfect summer afternoon made possible by community support, and, of course, the incredible COF grant opportunity. This project also fostered a story, and one that was beautifully shared as a spotlight by Matt Ozslewski in The Keene Sentinel.
Left to Right Image Credit: Nina Branwen, CCCD. Erin, GKL Director posing wiht banner in pollinator garden (left), community garden (middle), and vegtable garden (right).
As the Storytime kids would say, “Spit, Spat, Spout – this tale’s told out!” Only it’s not. These gardens are intended to keep growing and providing for the Troy community and local pollinators as long as possible. This, indeed, is only the first chapter…
The mission of the Conservation Opportunity Fund is to provide funding for owners of small tracts of land who are interested in improving the wildlife habitat on their property. This program is an annual opportunity to support environmental stewardship and the ecological integrity of Cheshire County, NH. Learn more, here!
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