The Gardener’s Journal

 

Its hard to believe but summer is over and fall is upon us! Most of the garden produce has been harvested and consumed and it is now time to celebrate this past year's work.

After worship on Sunday, October 30th, we gathered for a pitch in meal celebrating the work of our Luke 10 Community Garden Project. We also watched a slide show of various Community Garden events over this past Spring and Summer and copies of the brand new Community Garden Cookbook were made available. In lieu of a charge for the cookbook, we were asked to consider a generous donation to Love Chapel, they are always in great need this time of year. You can view or download a copy of the cookbook from this web site by clicking on the link at the beginning of this paragraph. We are currently out of hard copies, if you would like to reserve a copy from the next printing, contact Sandy Welliver.

 

On November 13, team leaders and other interested members gathered to wrap up our first year of the Community Garden Project. A summary of our "learnings" is highlighted below.

 

  • A high level of energy and enthusiasm was present at our start up meetings in the fall at member's homes
  • The two fund raisers were well received
  • Relationships were formed with others in the community that we might not have head the chance to get to know if we had not engaged in the project
  • The experiment directly involved members in various roles: team leaders, gardeners, building projects, publicity, cookbook, scrapbooking, sign making, hauling and purchasing materials, starting plants from seed, etc
  • It allowed us to use the grounds and indoor space at NCC in new and productive ways
  • The MAT team's challenge "Go forth to cultivate community from our doorsteps to the end of the Earth" was just right, specific enough to give us a focus, but broad enough to keep us open to where the Spirit moved us as a congregation

 

Things we might improve upon include:

  • Make sure that responsibilities are clearly defined for team leaders, team members, community groups
  • Create a "Coordinating Council" who will oversee the projects
  • Start planning earlier and plan with our community groups
  • Make sure there are enough garden plots
  • Do more things to engage our community groups, keep in contact with them throughout the summer
  • Have a mid summer gathering for our congregation and our community groups
  • We need more education on the gardening techniques that we are using
  • Set up a good system of communication, e-mail, face book, web site, for all involved
  • Identify leaders from the community groups to help share the responsibility of the project
  • Perhaps focus on one or two community groups and focus our energies around these

 

Recommendations:

It was the consensus of the group gathered that the garden project be continued for the coming year. Several volunteered to be on the coordinating council. The group will meet as soon as possible to begin planning for the 2012 garden project using the learnings from the 2011 year as a guide to make next year even more productive.

 

PICTURES