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We have set up a planning meeting for Wednesday 21 May at 6 pm at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church to discuss planning for a community garden. The goal will be to learn and teach practical gardening, sustainable growing, canning, preserving, and wild harvesting techniques. Most of the output will be donated to the Least of These food pantry in Springfield (it is very hard for food pantries to get access to fresh produce).
This is an open meeting. If you know of others who are interested in gardening for a good cause or want to learn and can put in some sweat, please pass on this message.
The meeting will be in The Gathering Place, the house to the immediate left of the church; just park in the church lot and walk over.
Update
The meeting went well, with everyone agreeing on the basic idea of growing vegetables in what used to be an old garden next to the church and sending the produce to the Least of These food pantry in Springfield. We talked about the fact that many of the people needing fresh produce do not necessarily know how to cook with it. We will need to send recipes with some of the produce and, if we can coordinate with Least of These to find out in advance what the weekly food commodities distribution will be, we can include recipes which combine the produce with other items we know the family will be receiving that week.
It was decided to concentrate on just the old garden area (approximately 21 x 14 feet) this year with an eye to expanding in later years. We are going to concentrate on continually producing crops like carrots, lettuce, beets during the summer and plan on a substantial fall garden with squashes, pumpkins and so forth. We are looking at the idea of combining some short classes or lessons on gardening with the work days, having a short class inside, for instance, and then moving to the garden itself to work.
Right now, the primary need is move the brush pile from the old garden site and take it to the county recycling facility. We also need to start collecting rinsed two-liter soda bottles to use in the irrigation system. We are also looking for people to donate leftover seed and possibly some fencing (e.g. chicken wire to keep critters out of the garden). Donations of tools, especially long-handled cultivators, hoes, dirt rakes, etc., would also be appreciated. We have a good source for some topsoil and mulch to build up the old garden bed. As soon as we get a handle on moving the brush, we will look at scheduling a work day to start preparing the soil.
Copyright © 2008, The Misty Manor, Mercers.
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