As you may remember I do a lot of gardening. Last year I gave a post on the early part of the gardening process each year.
Gardening: Seedlings from Basement to Garage
Like music, gardening has potential for generating a network of small groups in the parish where a dozen or so people could network over some aspect or type of gardening., e.g., vegetable gardening, flower gardening, perennial gardening, etc.
In this pandemic (post-pandemic, endemic?) age, gardening has the great advantage of being an activity that mostly takes place outdoors and is generally done by people who like to be outdoors. People can also network on-line, providing links to websites, YouTube, and even construct their own blogs.
After not being in parishes for over two years, we will likely not be returning to regular parish attendance. More likely we will be occasionally coming to Mass between surges, or perhaps attending only during the summers if the virus takes up residence in the winter season. If we cannot come to the parish, why not have a small subsection of the parish come to us.
All the parishes that I frequent have outdoor areas that are very accessible and little used, so there will not be the usual competition for parish meeting space, especially since we don't want to meet indoors. Plus, there is a huge amount of free space in our outdoor parks.
Precedents
We have one local parish that actually has a green house, built by the pastor with his own money. The parish raises and sells its produce after Masses.
My local parish had a small garden next to the food pantry which was lost when they expanded the food pantry. If our parish had a green house, then parish members could raise food for the food bank. Perhaps even invite food bank recipients to be a part of raising their own food.
The more distant parish (where our Commonweal group met) had a garden for a number of years by the young people who had been inspired by a trip to an urban garden. As they aged and likely went away to college, the garden folded.
Finally, the local parish like several parishes in the area has an annual boy scout sale of potted flowers on Mother's day. I also had the impression that they sold trays of vegetable and flower seedlings.
So, there is some local experience of parish gardening.
Most of all we would like a very grassroots movement that involves parish members but does not require parish resources for its maintenance.
We hope to be members of one or more groups (e.g. a vegetable group, a flower group, a shrub group) that we could network with mostly over the internet, occasion meeting them in an outdoor space, and inviting them one by one, or two by two, to visit us in our own garden.
Before the pandemic we regularly gave extra produce to the parish food bank. I wonder how many other people do that? If there are a lot of people, perhaps I might put a sign in the food pantry with my phone and e-mail, offering to network with them.
Any suggestions? What might make this attractive to you even if you were a porch, or patio gardener? What might be some of the problems?
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ReplyDeleteI think that is a nice idea, Jack. Gardeners form bonds with other gardeners. The idea of it being an informal network is good. We used to have a priest here who grew a huge garden and gave it all away to the food pantry and any who needed it. He got a lot of volunteers to help, including kids who needed service hours for Confirmation or graduation.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a very good gardener; I have trouble keeping stuff alive. Though I have planters and hanging baskets on the porch. When my husband asks if I want flowers for Mother's Day I always tell him I want hanging baskets rather than cut flowers, because the cat will bother them indoors. One of my sisters however, would be all over the parish garden idea. She belongs to a garden club which volunteers at one of the big plant nurseries to give people advice on their gardening projects.
Cats. The reason our plants and davenport are shredded. Flora even eats artificial plants. She cries at the Palm Sunday palms hanging over the door because she wants to eat them. I bring in mini zinnias, catnip, and wheat grass for her, but it just seems to encourage her to ravage more stuff. Dippy cat.
DeleteGood to know that my cat isn't the only one who tries to eat Palm Sunday palms. He has been known to drink holy water when I used to have a little font by the door too. Took some serious acrobatics to get it. It didn't make him angelic.
DeleteI douse them with holy water periodically, especially Geoffrey, who helped us raise The Boy and is now 21, blind, hypertensive, in renal failure, but amazingly enjoying life. He can't last much longer, but I said that three years ago. As long as he can find his food, hit the cat box, and has mobility enough to jump on the couch, I'll do what I can to keep him going.
DeleteKudos to you, Jack. The local parish has 4 acres of lawn high maintenance lawn. I float the garden idea to Raber once a year or so, but people feel it would look unsightly.
ReplyDeleteOn the subject of green and growing things, I have read several posts in local media lately advising people to delay their first grass cutting this spring, and to delay or skip spraying for dandelions. This is on account of our extraordinarily dry and windy spring. We are finally getting some decent rain, and the bees and other pollinating insects need some time to catch up. I have noticed a lot of shaggy lawns with lots of little yellow flowers, including ours. Sometimes doing nothing is for the best; glad to oblige.
ReplyDeleteFWIW, our parish has a gardening group, but its mission isn't to grow vegetables. It helps maintain the parish grounds, specifically the islands in our parking lot. Our suburban town's building code requires that parking areas be interspersed with greenery. This parish group allows individuals or families to "adopt" an island. They can grow whatever they wish. Most of them are very well maintained with flowers, shrubs, etc. It's very common during the warm months to see parishioners weeding and watering.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, our food pantry accepts produce donations from local gardeners. These are very welcome by our clientele, as the items stocked in the pantry generally are non-perishables: canned goods, boxed dried pastas and the like. We also provide gift cards for local grocery stores, so clients can shop to purchase produce, dairy products, meats and other perishable items. But our funds are limited, and food inflation is a real problem. So if we can supplement the gift cards with fresh produce, it's great for the clients. And it gives our parishioners something useful to do with their excess tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers.