Gardening for the Hungry

Fresh produce for those in need

Today Sallie Boge is share a unique garden space :

The St. Mary Church Garden Ministry in Riverside , Illinois , grows avegetable / herb / fruit gardenfor charity solid food buttery . Our garden is systematically the number - one seasonlong manufacturer forShare the Harvest , which organizes home gardener to supply bracing , homegrown food to food pantry in the Chicago country .

To have a successful harvest , we need a elaborate program , which I start in January , when it is too cold to garden outdoors in our Chicago - country suburbia .

We started our garden on the first daytime of spring 2009 — when it snowed ! From modest outset , we have expanded over the long time to include three 4×4raised bed , nine 4×8 raise beds , six cedar tuteurs ( forpole noodle ) , four powder - cake brand arbour ( for wine grapes ) , and in - priming beds around the border of the garden for a mixture of vegetables , fruit bushes , and perennial bloom to attract beneficialpollinators . We engineered a hybrid hush-hush / aboveground drip hose system to be able-bodied to water six raised bed at a time . We rise more crop on another part of our church ’s campus . I also have a small but consecrated group of home growers who add their garden ’s additional veggie to portion out every Monday morning when we harvest .

The cedar heighten layer are made from a kit from Rhino Garden Supply . There are no nails want , so even I , with no carpentry skills , could assemble the lift bed frames by myself .

We involve for some assist constructing our bonce tuteurs . Our local Girl Scout troop came through for us . This qualified them for a Silver Award . Thank you , Girl picket !

In ourpollinator perimeter gardenbeds , we grow , among other things , Phloxpaniculata(Zones 4–8 ) , Shasta daisy(Leucanthemum× superbum‘Becky ’ , Zones 5–9),Monarda , Iris siberica(‘Caesar ’s Brother ’ , Zones 4–9),Brunneramacrophylla(Zones 3–8 ) , Joe Pye weed(Eupatoriumdubium‘Little Joe ’ , zone 5–8 ) , peonies(Paeoniahybrid , Zones 3–8 ) , daylilies(Hemerocallis‘Stella d ’ Oro ’ , Zones 3–10 ) , sedum(Hylotelephium‘Autumn Joy ’ , Zones 3–9 ) , German bearded iris(Irishybrid , bearded grouping , Zones 4–8 ) , common milkweed(Asclepiassyriaca , Zones 3–9 ) , and evenfall - blooming anemone(Anemonehupehensis , Zones 4–8 ) .

We plant an edging of imperial Allium schoenoprasum around some of our kick upstairs bottom . We hope the smell confound some of the bugs who otherwise like to munch our harvest . Plus , we think they are pretty .

Radishesare just one of the crop we arise . We also have success withtomatoes , jalapeño peppers , mesclun mixlettuce , Gallic sorrel , garlic Allium schoenoprasum , Swiss chard , salad burnet , cabbage , pole beans , coke peas , beets , Basil the Great , rosemary , oregano , cucumber , sage , thyme , alcove leafage tree , curly parsley , peppermint , rhubarb , red-faced currant , gooseberry , carrot(‘Yaya ’ ) , apples , and more .

One of our harvests included 845 pole dome , 205 tomatoes , 18 cucumber vine , and more . ( Yes , we calculate ! ) . Here is the director of one of the food buttery our garden supply with ourharvest , box and ready to be stagger to the citizenry who depend on this food pantry for nutritious , fresh , locally grown food .

Thanks for “ visiting ” our garden . I hope you have such a successful 2022 harvest in your garden so that you may share some of the superfluous yield , vegetable , and herbs with your local food pantries too .

Have photos to divvy up ? We ’d love to see your garden , a particular collection of plant life you love , or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit !

To submit , send 5 - 10 photos to[email protected]along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you shoot the photos . We ’d love to learn where you are site , how long you ’ve been gardening , successes you are proud of , bankruptcy you teach from , hopes for the future , favorite plants , or rum taradiddle from your garden .

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