Garden Details
Garden Details
We started this garden in the spring of 2026 to provide fresh vegetables and fruits for St. Stephen Catholic Community’s Thursday Lunch program. This program provides more than 200 meals each week to anyone who needs one. We also provide for extra food for families in the summertime, when children are not in school, and thus do not have access to adequate nutrition. We started out with 2 large raised beds, plus a bed of blueberries, next to one of the homes that the parish owns on its 20 acres of property. Our intent is to expand the garden in future years, and to eventually turn it into a true community-based vegetable garden. Our primary goals with this garden is to provide nutritious, fresh vegetables to those who are food insecure, and to provide a teaching environment for those who would like to learn how to grow their own food.
Garden Practices
Garden Practices
We primarily use raised beds and organic gardening methods.
Tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, lettuce, cabbage, okra, onions, basil
We have a core support team of about 8 parish members, including a Master Gardener who helps to direct our planting activities. We are actively recruiting additional parish members for more support, both volunteer and financial, as we expand.
Additional Information
Additional Information
The primary challenges have been with critters eating some of our plants, in particular groundhogs ate most of our cucumber plants, so we were not successful in growing those plants.
Our first year's harvest has been exceptional, especially for tomatoes, bell peppers, and basil. We have learned a lot throughout this first harvest season, and are working to build future beds that will be more resilient and resistant to animal depredations. Overall, we consider our first year to be a great success!
