Mar 302011
Garden Ministry
Our garden ministry began in the spring of 2009, and since then, we have spent countless hours with our hands in the dirt. The produce we grow is shared with our congregation and with a local food bank. Read more about our garden ministry below, and come join us. We generally hold work sessions at our off-site garden (located at 4321 S. Elm-Eugene St.) in the spring and fall on Wednesdays and in the summer on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Mar 162011
Our Garden Ministry began its third season a few weeks ago, on a morning with blue skies that reminded us that spring is almost here. We’ve expanded the garden this year, so we’ll be working an area approximately half an acre. That first morning, we got the ground ready, and even planted a few rows of spinach, cabbage and lettuce. Now we’re working on a fence to go up around the whole garden to keep the produce safe from deer and other critters. As in the past two years, everything we grow will be shared with volunteers, church members, and the Servant Center food pantry.
Work sessions will increase as the weather gets warmer, but for now, you can find us there most Saturday mornings at 9:00 – our garden is located at 4321 S. Elm-Eugene Street, and we’d love to have you join us.
We’re also looking for an intern to help us with the garden this summer. Click here for more information.
Mar 152011
Mar 022011
Jul 262010
I take my daughter to the church garden early on Saturday morning. We bring her “tools” – a small plastic shovel and rake, and a bucket for collecting rocks. I have my garden gloves, so we also bring along a pair for her to wear. Hers are the stretchy kind she wears in winter – blue, with pink hearts on them – but she doesn’t seem to mind.
She is still a little too young and grabby to really be helpful in the garden. I have to steer her away from the not-quite-ripe tomatoes, and when I try to get her to pull weeds, she pulls a few too many plants instead. The other gardeners are gracious – they are good-hearted, patient church folks who know that there are things more important than perfect gardening – and one of them invites her over to look at a caterpillar.
The beans have come in, and the squash and zucchini have gone berserk, doubling in size over night so that we’ve had to line up volunteers to harvest every day. Tomatoes will be here before we know it, and rows of corn at the far end of the garden are already higher than my daughter’s head. Cantaloupe the size of softballs lay in waiting, with pumpkins promised before fall.
It’s the second summer for our community garden, and it feels good to be here on this sunny morning, working together. Like most good projects, it’s been championed by a small handful of hard-working and faithful people, and supported by many others who come when they can. We don’t have individual plots; everybody pitches in and does what’s needed. The harvest gets shared with anybody who works in the garden, and with anybody at church who wants some, and with the local food pantry. On Sunday mornings, folks bring in extras from their own gardens and add it to the bounty near our front doors. We don’t keep track of who brought what, or who took what, or who worked the hardest. If you can help, you help. If you need some, you take some.
On this morning, after the beans have been picked and we’ve made a dent in the weeds, we gather in the shade for a blessing. One of our most regular gardeners talks about how important this project has been for her. “I sit at a desk all day long,” she says, “and then I get to come out here and play in the dirt, and it’s wonderful.” We ask God’s blessing on the ground and on the harvest, and pray for the people this food will feed. Someone has brought a guitar so we sing a little bit, which feels just right. The breeze sweeps through us just then, a welcome freshness on the hot morning, and I am pretty sure it is the breath of God.
Jul 272009
Jun 172009
We’re trying something.
There’s a big basket in the front hall of the church. Right now it’s filled with zucchini and squash. We’re inviting people to bring extras from their home gardens. That, along with the produce growing in our church garden, will be available to anyone who needs it each Sunday morning. On Monday, whatever is left will be given to local organizations that can pass it on to families who need it.
Got extras growing in your garden? Come share the harvest with us.
Jun 172009
Jun 092009
Our garden ministry began, like the garden itself, with several small seeds. These seeds were conversations, begun back in early spring when the days were just beginning to warm. We started talking dreaming about July tomatoes, and wondering if it was too early to take our plants outside, and thinking about the great gifts that the earth bestows.
Some of us began to imagine a small garden plot out in the front yard of the church, where are kids could learn a little about growing food, and we could all share in the harvest. Then, it occurred to us that we could share the food we grow, not just with each other, but with community food banks, so that others could have fresh and healthy food all summer. So we got to work. Four raised beds were built just outside our playground fence, and now, in early June, those beds are already lush with tomato plants, squash, and peppers.
But that’s not all. One of our members has a big plot of land he wasn’t using, so we’ve started an off-site garden that will is growing even more food. We’re learning as we go, but we are ever grateful for the bounty of God’s creation.