St. Mark Community Garden was established in 2010. It is a tranquil yet busy, dusty and sometimes dirty, fun and rewarding, beautiful and weedy acre of land behind our church. When spring is cold and wet it can feel like it takes forever for crops to start growing and the weeds take off WAY BEFORE the crops get big enough to survive around them. Other years it dries out fast and we scramble to get the irrigation started so the crops we have planted don’t die. The rabbits are a constant problem and rarely allow us to grow many green beans to maturity. And with all that, it is a slice of heaven on earth.
Each year is a different story. This year the potatoes were great, and the carrots were terrible. Last year the carrots were outstanding, and the potatoes were so-so. Cucumbers are usually a struggle and then one year we will have bushels of them. Some years we have endless broccoli, and other times it gets aphids and can’t be used. The funny thing is that the work we put into it is always the same, the seeds and plant starts are almost always the same, and the weather is the weather. And at the end of each season we have donated over 10,000 pounds of produce to the Thurston County Food Bank
Gary Delozier is our head gardener and is usually at the garden EVERY morning from March through October. The garden is then tilled in the fall. Gary weighs and tallies up all the totals of produce and prepares a report which is reviewed by the garden committee in January at our annual meeting. He takes a week or two off and then begins preparations for the next growing season. Plants are started indoors January – March. If you look in the windows on the south side of the Education building February through May, you will see baby cabbage, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, celery, cucumbers and squash.
46 raised beds are adopted each March mostly by community members, and a few church members. The church supplies the water in our drip irrigation system. All those that adopt beds keep that produce, and then work 10 hours each summer in the Food Bank’s one-acre garden, usually at every other weekend work parties. Earla F provides snacks for most work parties, and the highlight is her home-made muffins which are heavenly.
Who is on the garden committee? Anyone who would like to be!! Who works in the garden? Anyone that would like to! This summer we had two energetic young men interns – grandsons of Earla Ferry (Gavin) and Kristina Tamm-Finnerud (Logan). They worked hard and enjoyed themselves also.
The growing season is wrapping up now in October, but the winter squash still needs to be harvested after the first frost. Look for Gary’s silver truck parked in front of GUS (Garden Utility Shed) and if he is there, something is still happening in the garden.
~~Gail Frare, Master Gardner