The Giving Garden of Carrollton

Your Giving Garden Board of Directors

What a wonderful time everyone had at our End of Harvest party!  We have some very good cooks at the garden and the gift exchange game was a hoot!  Congratulations to Laura for winning the raffle gift.

Today was Food Share for senior citizens in the community delivered by volunteers of Aldersgate United Methodist Church.  Thanks to Cindy Baxley for taking our 21 lb. harvest up to the church for distribution.  We had a Hebron High School senior assisting in the garden and with Food Share this morning and he was a tremendous help. We also had a neighbor volunteer. Linda had been a recipient of some of our free mulch and felt she wanted to give back so she joined us in pulling Bermuda grass.  She is in the orange shirt and floppy straw hat.

There were so many people working to clean up the garden common areas pulling Bermuda grass and weeds. It was hot but the efforts of so many were SIZZLING as tasks got done.  Thanks to all who help to keep our beautiful garden in good shape!

Have you been enjoying this new addition to the garden?  Thanks to a grant from Lowes facilitated by Cindy Baxley and beautiful plantings by both Cindy and Laura Margadonna, the native plant bed is looking great! It is drought tolerant so should do very well through this hot summer.

We had about 27 people gather inside at the church for great food and wonderful fellowship in spite of the storms!  Carolyn’s blackberry cobbler was a great hit and there were some dishes made from fresh ingredients from the garden such as salad and green beans!  If you missed this one be sure and make the next one.

The sun is actually popping out a little so those tomatoes may start ripening after all. If you haven’t checked out the berry beds be sure and take a look.  They are gorgeous.

Hope to see you soon at the garden and maybe you it won’t be in an ark!

The larkspur is blooming beautifully at the garden and the bees and butterflies are loving it!  Thanks Laura Margadonna for caring for our flower beds and the herb bed. You do a great job.

Thanks to T.C. and Carolyn Rice for our wonderful berry patch that is bountiful with blooms!  We should get a good yield when they are ready to harvest soon.  The garden is looking beautiful and we are getting some very beneficial rains.  We will have an all gardener work day on Saturday, April 25th so we look forward to seeing everyone out in the garden that day.

Saturday, March 28th we had a beautiful day for our end of month work day.  At one time there were 26 people working like busy bees in the garden.  We began by harvesting 25.5 lbs. of greens and cabbages for the Food Share program at Aldersgate Methodist Church. This was our first harvest of this year and you can see we had an abundance of greens  Can you imagine how thrilled those seniors were to get this organic produce?  And, some got deliveries from our smiling student volunteers.  It was a treat for all.  The student volunteers dug a lot of Bermuda and laid mulch in the aisles.

Thanks to Steve Barrett, the water was repaired and many gardeners took advantage of the beautiful day to get their beds planted for Spring.

Saturday, March 21st was one of the first days of Spring and we had a wonderful turnout for the kickoff orientation and workday in the garden.  We had a great group of students from Hebron High School who were participating in the school district’s Big Event to volunteer throughout the community. They cleaned out the pergola beds, placed mulch and weeded the aisles and also helped beautify the rose bush beds at the church.  Many gardeners, both new and existing, worked to get their bed plantings started.

RESCHEDULED DATE – Mark your calendars — Saturday, March 21st at 10:00 am in a portable at the garden we will have our annual kickoff/orientation meeting for all gardeners.  We’ll have refreshments and lots of important information to help you get your gardening season off to a great start.  We’ll have the seeds that Strong’s Nursery donated for you to choose from and please bring any seeds you would like to share.  Make a list of any questions you may have for the garden board members. This also our first end of month “All Gardener Work Day” and we’ll have student volunteers joining gardeners to work hard to get the garden ready for the season. So, bring your work gloves and put in some time before or after the orientation.  We look forward to seeing you there.