PORT ANGELES — The Vineyard Community Garden will begin to take shape within the coming weeks and be ready for those who snatch up plots to plant seeds around Memorial Day.
Olympic Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church, 3415 S. Peabody St., donated a 12,750-square-foot plot of land — which was creating a mowing conundrum for the church — to serve as a community garden.
“A lot of the guys here were telling me that they have to mow that huge patch of grass every single week in the spring and summer,” said the Rev. Rick McDaniel, who has lived in Port Angeles with his wife, Chris, and pastored the church for about five months.
“I thought that was just crazy, so I said that we should put a garden out there, and we heard about this group trying to start a community garden but had no place to put it, and it all worked out.”
Karen Bert — a farmer who owns Black Sheep farm near Freshwater Bay, and a group of people trying to start a community garden — were the perfect fit for the partnership, he said.
Bert said the community garden concept will help provide vegetables to families — though probably not all that they will need — but also to grow relationships and teach about how to grow food.
The church has also offered to accept donations for the garden, which makes the donations tax-deductible, McDaniel said.
In a planning meeting Sunday, the group determined that the next step for the land — which has already been tilled by donation — is to lay out where the plots and paths will go.
Hank Gibson, an architect who is helping to start up the garden, has designed a concept for the garden, including a center structure to serve as a meeting or picnic area.
Trees will line the back, where they won’t prevent sun from reaching the vegetable gardens, and compost bins will be available.
The plot will be lined with a fence to prevent deer from entering and eating the veggies and a decorative gate is already in the works.
So far the group has had many offers of donations.
“I haven’t talked to a single person who hasn’t been helpful and wanting to help out in any way that they could,” Mark Thomas, who is serving as the liaison between the church and the gardening group, said.
The group will also work on getting officially incorporated so it can get a checking account and be formally organized, the group said at the Sunday organizational meeting.
Soil testing has been done, but the results are not back, so the group isn’t sure what kind of nutrients will need to be added, Bert said.
The 60 plots will start at about $25 per plot as an introductory rate, Bert said.
“Our goal is to have every plot filled and planted this year,” she said.
Only organic fertilizer and pesticides will be allowed, she said.
The group is looking for donations of posts for the fence, volunteer labor, lumber for the center structure and some machinery for creating the paths.
Starting today, volunteers will begin to stake out the path lines, Gibson said.
“We need to get that figured out first,” he said.
“My goal is to get the fence up as soon as possible.”
Christin Maks and Sulene Krause, who both have children in elementary school, said they plan to bring the children to help pick up rocks today, as well as helping later on with the gardening.
“I’m hoping that through this I can maybe broaden the variety of vegetables that they’ll eat — because if they help grow it, maybe they’ll be more willing to eat it,” Krause said.
“Plus this is just a really great way to get the kids outside doing active things.”
Maks, a dietician, said having homegrown vegetables is also important to her.
“It not only saves us a little bit of money, but it also teaches the kids a lesson about how the food is grown,” Maks said.
Thomas said he would be helping out at the gardens in general but that he already has large gardens of his own to tend to.
“To me this is almost a spiritual thing, a lesson,” he said.
“Learning about sowing and reaping for example.
“And all life started in a garden — the Garden of Eden.”
For more information, phone Gibson at 360-457-3744 or Bert at 360-928-0214.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
