Updated Description of the NPK Project

For anyone who would like to know more about the NPKs - Neighborhood Planters Kiosks

The NPK project is being pioneered by volunteers from multiple organizations to reach more people with gardening information and build community within neighborhoods.  We hope that it will let more people know about how Benton County Master Gardeners, the Corvallis Evening Garden Club, the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, and the City of Corvallis Civic Beauty and Urban Forestry Group support our community and gardening efforts.  We also want to encourage neighbors to talk and share not only the information that we are sending out, but their own ideas and enthusiasm.  The gardeners hosting the kiosks will be able to point their neighbors in the right direction to use community resources and to garden more effectively.  The posts and their hosts will become a focal point where people can go to share knowledge, plants, seeds, stories, and extra produce.

The NPK will bring seasonally appropriate, sustainable gardening information and notices about related community events right into our streets in a friendly, colorful venue that we will install in front yards, community gardens, and other areas highly visible to pedestrian traffic.  We’ll put research based information and answers directly into neighborhoods all over town, reaching a slightly different demographic than has been done before.  This information will rotate weekly and be provided by our four collaborators.  We will be able to keep tabs on what garden problems are showing up in our community on a daily basis, by tracking the questions that come in to the Master Gardener Help Desk.  We can then get information about those very current, specific problems and their solutions out to gardeners who may be experiencing the same problem and wondering what to do about it.  

We will also share up to the minute news, gardening articles, photos of community projects, and all of the past posts from the NPK on our blog, a venue that is accessible for anyone near or far from an NPK.