Four years ago I approached our church council at Houston Christian Reformed Church to see if there might be enough interest to start a community garden on church land. It sounded like a good idea at the time – I mean we have all this land why not put some of into food production for the community. Responses where “that’s a great idea Cindy you should do it”; “you can’t even grow potatoes in that land” and “the deer will eat everything”. Needless to say I was too stubborn (and naïve) to listen to anyone. I found one other brave soul to join me in doing the organizing and planning and decided to give it a go.
One church member brought in his backhoe and dug up the soil, another brought a truck load of manure laden soil from his farm to fill it up and yet another came with his tiller to mix it all. And so, four years ago, our little 75 x 50 plot became our church community garden.
Since then it has not grown in size but has developed into a pretty little garden on the hill complete with deer fence (the deer were indeed a problem) and a used shed that was moved from the parsonage during renovations. This year the building committee dug a trench, laid piping and set up water taps right at the garden instead of having to haul the hose to connect to the pastor’s house whenever we needed water! And, with the help of the congregation we even came up with an official name: Mountain View Community Garden.
So today I want to take back any whining I did over the years about nobody supporting me in this project. Please forgive me for not seeing all the help you have provided and my hat’s off to all of those wonderful people who have stepped up to help. Thank you so much!
To date we have had over a dozen different gardeners ranging from 4 to 8 per year. We still have lots to develop on the community side of things but we’re on the right track. Now that the physical on the ground logistics are taken care of I would love to see this garden become a place where people can meet, share gardening stories and experience and share the love of Christ with the earth and the neighbours around us. As visions of a food forest, a potato patch, picnicking area with campfire spot, native learning garden, prayer garden, berry patch and other fun gardening ideas running around in my head I realize I’m going to need more help. Or I could just leave it small and enjoy seeing people grow food for their families and community members! As they say in Uganda – Kamu Kamu Gwe Muganda (one by one makes a bundle) and really, only God knows what’s in store. But if the entire church could catch the vision of caring for this piece of earth that God has given us to steward just imagine what it could be…Join me in praying for this exciting project.
Mountain View Community Garden is a project of Houston Christian Reformed Church and a member of A Rocha’s Community Gardening Network
