We got off to a wonderful start with a very successful “Planting Weekend” with 22 adult and child volunteers. With the help of our new tiller, we were able to keep just a head of the wonderful helpers who came behind and planted.
It became apparent early on in the summer that this wasn’t going to be like the others. Our garden is not equipped with an irrigation system requiring us to haul water in from the creek and hand water all the plants throughout the garden. in past years, we experienced sufficient rainfall to keep the garden alive and thriving without manual irrigation. However, this year the rain just didn’t fall. This required us to rely extensively on volunteers to help manually water the plants.
Without the help of so many people who toiled under terribly hot conditions, all the plants of the garden would have all died. However, with the manual watering, we were able to keep nearly all the plants alive and most produced a crop for donation. By the end of the hot and dry summer, we donated 1,700 pounds of produce and eggs. This is significantly less than we hoped, but miraculous considering the lack of rain fall. Despite the hardships, there were many highlights to make note of:
- Amazingly enthusiastic volunteers who made it out to the garden just when their help was most needed.
- Created a Facebook page to communicate with volunteers and others interested in the work of the organization.
- Many local community members contributing their extra produce to the Green County Food Pantry.
- The Colony Foundation donated funds enabling us to purchase a fire truck to use for irrigation.
- Purchased a used hoop house and got it partially installed.
- When it doesn’t rain, there are no weeds!!
