SDA community garden will provide fresh vegetables for assistance

[Key Guy]

From Tulsa World (OK) Online

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.a...57&allcom=1

Quote:

For Amy Lee, giving fresh vegetables to the Iron Gate soup kitchen downtown is just one of many benefits of the new community garden at the First Seventh Day Adventist Church, 920 S. New Haven Ave.

As the economy sags, more people and organizations are putting in vegetable gardens. Philbrook Museum is growing vegetables in its gardens for the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.

"Gardening offers the whole package for health and wellness: exercise, social interaction, fresh air, nutritious organic produce," said Lee, who is health ministries director for the church.

The garden is a good way for the church to give to the community, and to develop relationships with neighbors in a safe, nonthreatening way, she said.

"And we want to help the planet, reduce our carbon footprint home-grown food does not have to be transported."

Lee said the idea for a church-sponsored community garden came to her while she was walking in River Parks and saw a broad, grassy area that would make a good garden.

It occurred to her that the church had such an area behind its buildings. When she presented the idea to the church board, "everyone was very excited about it," she said.

The idea snowballed. Numerous businesses contributed materials and bedding plants. Soon 70 people, church members and neighbors, had signed up to grow vegetables for their own use, and to give to the needy.

Fifty-two individual plots were developed, each 3 feet by 15 feet. Participants each

rented two plots. They also agreed to help out with an 800-square-foot community plot for vegetables that require more space, like corn and melons.

The garden plots are designed in raised mounds called the "lasagne" method, seven layers of manure, dirt, peat moss and grass clippings that settle to about 24 inches high. Plants are grown in the rich, organic mounds above the ground, instead of in the ground, which at the church is too rocky to till.

Among the participants in a work day Sunday at the community garden was the Rev. Susanne Methven, associate rector at St. John's Episcopal Church.

St. John's rented two plots at the garden to provide fresh vegetables for Iron Gate, a soup kitchen at Trinity Episcopal Church.

She said St. John's is considering putting in a community garden, and participating in the Seventh Day Adventist project gives them a better feel for what is required.

"Trinity doesn't always get a lot of fresh vegetables for Iron Gate, so this has ended up to be a great marriage," she said.

"In this economy, it's necessary for some people to grow their own food, and it's important for those who have more to help out," she said.

"And it's just such a nice way to meet people, and to work together."

She said St. John's will schedule volunteer work days as needed through the growing season to tend the garden, probably on Sunday afternoons, since Seventh Day Adventists observe the Sabbath on Saturdays.

Iron Gate executive director Connie Cronley, who helped plant the St. John's plot Sunday, said fresh vegetables are considered a real delicacy at the soup kitchen.

"When we asked the kitchen what they wanted, they said, 'anything green,' " she said.

For Dale Jeffers, the community garden has been a godsend. After a lifetime of gardening, she moved from her house three years ago into an apartment near the church.

"I missed it," she said. "I wouldn't even look at gardening magazines."

When she heard about the community garden, she said, "I jumped on it."

"It's been a gift. It's been one of those serendipitous things I really appreciate." She planted onions, swiss chard, spinach, carrots and radishes.