The original flower bed, a raised affair a couple of decades old, had begun to decline a little and as a part of a larger mission to provide fresh produce for our food pantry, it was decided that the first phase of “the Big Garden Project” would be replacing the standing flower bed.

It is both proof of concept, and a way to help people envision the larger project, imagine what could be.

Paul Brooks, our resident maven called for limbs trimmed from our own trees, clippings from our lawns, and cardboard to fill up the bottom of the box and slowly decay over the next few years, contributing their nutrients to the soil as they did. In the lined box, he then added soil and some paper shreds. There will be a top layer of soil and compost before we plant again, flowers mostly (although Paul has hinted that he’ll likely sneak some garlic in there as well), because beauty is one of God’s gifts also.

But, as I hinted, this is only the first of what we hope will be a garden space producing food for our hungry neighbors.

In the space where our moribund Labyrinth once stood, we’re proposing an entire development of raised beds, this time for growing vegetables.

Now I only took a snapshot of the proposal, but this is what we are thinking of. The boxes will be eight feet long and four feet across. Use the odd concrete octagon on the lawn in the picture above to give you the orientation of the garden we want to build.

We plan on beginning with just the two u-shaped developments at the bottom of the plan, which will be closest to the church building. We have the materials ready, but timing is not on our side, with people taking trips and schedules interfering.

But check in with us in the spring!