Even as the Alliance Community Garden winds down the growing season, a flurry of planting, harvesting, and seeding has been taking place thanks to key volunteer support!
- Our Second Saturday regular garden workday welcomed volunteers from Edenton Street United Methodist Church Missional Community, the Boy Scouts, and MedThink. Volunteers pulled weeds, harvested butter beans, and planted spinach seeds. One helpful volunteer used his truck to pick up and spread leaf mulch.
- The men’s group from Crosspointe Church in Cary pulled weeds and mulched around the blueberry bushes.
- Many thanks to Christ Episcopal Church youth group for weeding, mulching, harvesting lima beans, seeding clover, and planting spinach in the handicapped-accessible garden box.
Volunteers and patients always ask how we ward away the pests and the deer. Through a variety of organic deterrents we’ve been able to keep our Community Garden healthy for the past eight years.
This Fall has brought along a new challenge, however -- two woodchucks! These fuzzy critters have a serious sweet tooth for the tender young leaves of our Fall plants. While we haven’t caught them yet, we’re hopeful and have made some adaptive adjustments to ensure the planting success of some produce as we close out the growing season.
We’ve covered a few rows of plants with a shade cloth to act as a physical barrier for the groundhog and have planted spinach out of reach in our handicapped-accessible planter boxes.
Despite the groundhog challenge, we’re grateful for our well rooted summer crops that will continue to bear beautiful, nutritious fruit until the first frost.
Stay tuned for the cabbage, collards, and spinach coming soon!
Come dig in our garden!
Join us for our FINAL regular Garden Work Day!
Learn a thing or two about our garden and bees and help provide fresh produce for our patients.
RSVP or just drop in! garden@alliancemedicalministry.org
November 11, 9 am to 12 pm