Spring sprung and we have officially jumped into action!

After getting a late start due to flooding and illness, we can happily share that we have conducted our first workshop. Our first meeting was full of gardening planning tips from our workshop leader and partner, Ben Prewitt, horticulture agent at Whitley County UK Extension Office. And the house was PACKED. We had folks of all ages and all walks of life who were genuinely interested in learning about PH levels in soil, believe it or not. We were also happy to see plenty of children there to preach the good word of Kindergarten Readiness to. If you remember, our community garden is a community learning garden. Our goal is to increase the knowledge of gardening, support family bonding and community partnership, and increase school readiness among the children in the neighborhood. After seeing participation in our workshop, I am very optimistic about the future and can’t wait to see how this program evolves.

We’ve also made the decision to allocate some of our labor budget to hiring a site coordinator (a novel idea, I know). This will allow us to expand our bandwidth and ensure quality of the program. Our goal is to have our site coordinator work in tandem with a community member to maintain participation, preserve the garden and keep our heads on straight through this growing season. And it will allow us to put money back into the community that has so graciously allowed us to host this garden in their backyards.

Another development, we finally have our land plowed! This was delayed due to flooding and torrential rain that we have experienced since Spring came in like a lion, this March. We’ve been carefully monitoring our weather apps and even discussed trying to container garden in the midst of being rained out in the county. Luckily, we had a few “dry-ish” days and good ol’ Ben Prewitt made time in his busy schedule to make sure our land was turned and ready for planting.

Our next stop is purchasing and installing our vegetables. We’ve discussed the virtues of tomatoes, squash, beans and other high yield crops. We want to produce as much as possible with our gardeners and to create an abundance of fresh food.

All in all, things are looking up and up and up. We’d like to give a big thank you to Steph and Faye for bestowing years of wisdom upon us as we go through our struggle-bus phase in the first year of gardening, and their patience. A special thanks to UK Extension for all that they’ve done thus far and all that they will do. And as always, thank you to the Housing Authority for being amazing partners and ensuring that this brainchild would come to fruition.

See you in July!