We here at St.Vincent Mission were able to do 8 fencing jobs this year for some of our participants. Debbie was so excited when she got her fence put up, she said,”Now the animals and the neighborhood pig would not be able to disturb her harvest”. Tiling has been a challenge so far for us, we started on the second garden when tiller began to smoke like crazy. So back into the shop it went causing a two week delay on getting the gardens prepped and ready.

We were able to finally complete all 6 gardens for the season. In the greenhouse we transplanted 675 bell peppers plants and 352 tomato plants to be given out to our garden participants. They were happy to receive them with the price of everything going up so high. We had another donation of seeds sent to us and the end of April, so more seeds were also given out at our Monthly meeting in May.

Here at the mission my two interns, Gracie and Allie have also been working on our strawberry bed. They were able to learn and add 40 more strawberry plants to our small strawberry garden. Gracie and Allie are looking forward to working with Greg, a volunteer who comes back every Spring and works in the high tunnel. This year he is planning to raise bush beans and teach the girls some things on gardening.

These warm days are bringing everything out, from the trees, flowers, and pollen. The May workshop was a success. Everyone enjoyed talking about what they were going to try and grow in their gardens. I also look forward to seeing our older participants as well as the new participants at each meeting. Now we wait to see what June will bring us.