Welcome to the Alliance Community Garden blog. This will be a place where you can find information about the garden and get updates on new garden events.
The AUMC church council met last night and gave approval for a community garden to be built outside of the family life center. The idea behind the garden originated years ago, when Kern and I first joined AUMC. The lot next to the church seemed like such an ideal place for gardening: full sun, lots of space and room to grow. Wouldn't it be wonderful, we thought, to have a big space to grow fresh fruit and vegetables that we could harvest for our family, our church, and to share with area food banks?
The idea, like so many, was pushed to the backburner until this fall.
This fall, Jim's series on Breaking Free has helped me to step forward with the idea for the garden and seriously investigate the possibility for our church. The story Jim shared about Moses and his excuses hit particularly close to home. (Thanks, Jim.) Through faith, I decided to "step into the water" and follow where God seems to be leading. I've been in prayer about this garden for a long time, and I would ask that you would join me in that effort. What I've found, when I started researching, is that our plot and our neighborhood could be an extremely useful place to grow a community garden. Community gardens are blooming throughout Tarrant County, and volunteer gardeners, just like us, are helping to provide area food banks with hundreds of pounds of fresh produce.
So far, I've spoken with the trustees, the mission committee, and Katey Rudd, a Tarrant Area Food Bank community garden organizer. Katey has been extremely helpful and she'll be on board as we make the steps toward building the garden. I've contacted another successful community garden at Arlington First Christian Church and am amazed at all they've accomplished in less than a year. All of the steps so far have seemed spirit-led, and last night's council approval was the "green light" we needed to move forward.
We have plans to begin a fall test garden to work on our irrigation issues and planting structures. Our hope is to have several additional plots built in the spring, which we can lease to church members and members of our community. We'd like the space to be one of true community: to invite neighbor schools to have educational opportunities, to invite area apartment complexes to have space to grow food, to increase our missional giving to feed folks who need some extra help. Imagine concerts in the garden, picnics, and just good fellowship as we dig and play and grow.
If you'd like to be involved, or are interested in leasing a plot for your family or community group, let me know. If you've got a green thumb, have ideas for the garden, or just want to share your expertise, I'd love to hear from you. We'll have an informational meeting soon to discuss the garden, and you're invited. I'll post details soon.
We just returned from checking on the garden, with good news to report. The cauliflower and broccoli are doing so well. We harvested our first batch of broccoli on Thanksgiving day, and it was so tender and delicious. We have yet to taste the cauliflower, but it looks good so far. The spinach was struggling in its current spot (hidden from sunshine behind the enormous broccoli and cauliflower plants), so we transplanted it closer to the Western side of the bed. 
If you've seen the garden lately, we "winterized" it by adding thin pvc piping with a "planket" to cover for a freeze. So far we've only had to use it once, with excellent results. The pvc piping keeps the planket off the plants, because I'm told that if the cover freezes and sticks to the plants, the plants freeze, too. Who knew?
