Becca and I have been involved in a small group at church since last Fall. In this group we've been duscussing many issues related to how we grow our food, ship our food, eat our food, etc. After reflecting on numerous problems that seem global, or at least national, in scope, we focussed on local solutions. What can we do? I'm not going to get into the specific issues that we discussed, bet if you'd like to hear more, just ask. As a reaction to what we were discussing, we decided to start what we now call Ploughshares Community Garden; it's on the grounds of our church, Frazer Mennonite Church. The garden is a collection of individual plots, open to anyone in the community. They are 20' X 20, but people can sign up for 1/2 or even 1/4 plots if they want them. People can plant whatever they'd like. We didn't publicize it a whle lot because it was our first year, and we wanted to start small, with 8 full-sized plots. When we officially opened it up to the congregations and the surrounding community, we filled up in a week. So, there will definitely be talks about expanding for next year.

Becca and I signed up for a plot this year and are having a blast. Our plot is 20' X 20'. For most of it, we are experimenting with raised beds (shabby though they may be). We have 4 beds. We are using straw as our mulch. The beds are arranged rectangularly; each is the length of the plot. Although it's pretty difficult to see much besides the marigolds (trying to keep the rabbits away) and the straw, we also have:

Bed 1

• a few other types of flowers (just starting to poke up)
  

Bed 2

• peppers


• spinach (we started from seed and its pretty far behind)


• cucumbers (same deal)


• pumpkins


• lettuce


• radishes (at least we think. . .long story)


• potatoes (We weren't planning on groing these, but friends of ours had extra, so we planted a few. Now, they are these huge beautiful leafy plants that are the most exciting looking things in our garden)


• spring onions

Bed 3

• tomatoes


• more lettuce

Bed 4

• crookneck sqaush


• watermelons


• amish melon (looks like a cantelope on the seed package)


• more pumpkins


• Butternut squash
  

Everytime we go to the garden, Gryff comes along. We tye him up on the outside of the fence next to where we will be working.
We are really having a blast and learning as we go. Becca and I started a bunch of things from seed in our basement under some flourescent lights. Then we planted the cold weather stuff. The weekend before Memorial Day, Mom and Dad came back herer after Andrea Spengler's graduation. We spent the afternoon working in the garden. That's the day that we really got the most done. Mom and Dad were a lot of help. Becca and I are pretty much flying by the seat of our pants when it comes to most of this stuff, hence the "learning as we go." So, Mom and Dad's experience and knowledge was invaluable.
We were having trouble with rabbits or possible groundhogs and, we think, crows. We planted Marigolds to try to keep rabbits away and we put netting over the beds to see if it will keep crows away.
So, we haven't actually harvested anything yet, but we're excited that things are at least growing.