St. Francis Creates a New Community Garden Ministry
10/12/2014
A new Community Garden Ministry was approved by the Vestry and blessed by Bishop Gulick during his Parish visit Sunday, Oct. 12. This new Ministry is being called simply "The Garden" and was proposed and is being lead by church member MJ Weatherford with the help of member volunteers. The Garden invites people into a shared family experience to work with the hungry to provide fresh produce to local food banks. The first garden bed has been located on the top of the hill in the front field to the south of the clump of trees. This location is a good distance from the road, level, and provides full sun in an east/west orientation. The only crop this first year will be three rows of bush beans and one of pole beans. Beans are easy to grow, have a high yield, and are easy to harvest and it is even possible to have two crops in one season. Spring preparation and planting will require a schedule for volunteers that includes weeding, tilling, preparing rows for planting, planting, watering, and observing for problems such as disease and pests.
The initial Garden preparation effort took place on Sunday, Oct. 5 where volunteers marked and tilled the garden bed this fall and added leaves to enrich and break up the soil. A soil test was sent to Virginia Tech for analysis. Pictures of this initial Garden work are included below:
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