The race has begun! We were off to a slow start but we are in full stride now! There are so many things happening I don’t know where to start.
Vada Wilson owner of Wilson’s Greenhouse donated 3 truck loads of pots and seed starting trays. This was a big help for our participant seed starting class. The Linwood Community Day Care kids also had a lot of fun with them!
Lots of POTS!
Danny Beverage of Beverage Concrete plowed and tilled our garden… that was the beginning of the real work. There were many days of rock picking that took many hands of all sizes to get the dirty job done. Thanks to everyone that helped!
It takes talent to till in the DARK!
We finally had the opportunity to plant the community garden spaces. The turn out was awesome! There were even a few last minuet participants sign up. Guess it looked like too much fun to not join in!
Cool kids
Water duty
Garden Sisters
We had a TON of plants donated by the Alderson Grow Appalachia site! Beth Massey helped me load an entire suburban full of tomatoes, cabbage, peppers, cauliflower, and broccoli. With our late start this was a BIG and appreciated help!!!
Queen of plants! Beth Massey
The deer around the community garden are in for quite a shock if they try to steel our goods! We constructed a temporary electric fence and are in the process of setting a more permanent solution. Thanks to Ronnie Doyle for bringing his auger down for the post! We are building a 10 foot high fence with 3.5 feet of electric netting and 2 strands of electric tape at the top. Yes the deer in the Linwood area are bad, not to mention not afraid of people. The tourist area has desensitized the deer to human interaction.
Caution ELECTRIC!
Garden Mayor, my right hand man! Thanks Steve White for all your back breaking work!
The kids of the Linwood community had their own planting fun! This week Jenny Totten held a Jr. Master Gardener meeting. The Pocahontas County Farm to School Vista Holly Bradley also came for the fun.
Jr. Mater Gardeners in the making
A new Jr. Master Gardener curriculum will soon be released and Linwood got a “sneak peek”! We are excited!
As always this amazing project could not happen without the help an support of our community and Grow Appalachia.
Thanks to everyone for everything!
Kelsey Beverage
Grow Linwood Garden Manager
I have loved being a part of the program here in Valley Head as part of the Linwood project. I have enjoyed being able to share the wealth of the land here on the church grounds with the folks in this little community. Kelsey has been so gracious and helpful. I have been most excited about being able to give lots of greens away, some folks have never had loose leaf lettuce before. It is like there has been an awakening to how good fresh can be. Speaking of fresh, before I planted the little patch, I prayed for it all around because there are lots of deer around and everyone told me that they would be a big problem so I told the Lord that I wanted to bless others with veggies and that I needed Him to keep deer and bunnies away. Well, He has answered. There has been lush lettuce, carrots, kale, chard and the like and I have had a full harvest. I give the Lord all the praise- He is the best organic gardener and pest controller ever. Feeling Blessed