Church is starting community garden in Birchwood

Community members at Faith Lutheran Church in the Birchwood neighborhood are in the planning stage of creating a community vegetable garden on the church’s property.
The purpose of the garden is to provide nutritious food for families in the neighborhood and reduce family food budgets while fostering community in the neighborhood, said Edward Alexander, a member of the church’s parish council. Approximately 15 people at the church are currently involved in the project, he said.
Produce can be expensive to purchase but costs almost nothing to grow, he said. Families who may cut produce out of their budget and opt to purchase less expensive food will now have nutritious food available to them.
According to Alexander, ten thousand residents live within one mile of the church. More 60 percent of these residents live in apartments or duplexes. Because of this, families may not have the land to grow gardens individually, so a community garden may be a good resource for them, he said.
The location of the garden will be the grassy plot of land next to the church, which is approximately four thousand square feet, said Alexander.
The church hopes to see involvement from the broader neighborhood community, he said.
According to Becky Curtis, of Community First! Gardens, most neighborhood gardens allow families to have an individual plot, which they are responsible for tending and harvesting. Some gardens like the one in the Cordata neighborhood set aside a larger plot for communal use, she said. Larger crops like corn, that take more space to grow are planted in these plots and gardeners take turns tending them, she said.
She said the Faith Lutheran garden is unique because the garden plot is on private land and is being offered as a resource to the broader community. She said it is also especially useful to the community since so many people who live near the church are in apartment buildings and don’t have space to garden themselves.
“It will really serve a group of people who don’t have land of their own to use,” she said.
“We’d like to get started as soon as possible,” Alexander said.
He said ideally the gardening will begin in about a month, but it is unknown when the gardening will begin since the church is still in the process of planning the garden and coming up with the funding for the startup costs of the garden.

The church will apply for funding to create garden

The church is currently applying for a grant from the Whatcom County branch of the Washington State University Community First! Gardens.
Curtis said when distributing grant money to help pay for the cost of a garden, the organization wants to make sure the garden has longevity and the neighborhood will be actively involved in the project.
They also want to make sure that the gardeners will be available to share experiences and advice with future garden projects funded by the organization.
Curtis gave a presentation to the members of the Faith Lutheran project at one of the meetings they had about the garden project, in order to give them the information they needed to begin planning the garden and applying for the grant.
She said when working with a garden project, the intention is they will eventually receive a grant from Community First! Gardens.

Garden projects in Birchwood underway

Community garden projects are a way to bring the neighborhood together and allow for interaction among residents, said Birchwood Neighborhood Association Board President Adrienne Battis.
There are garden projects underway at Shuksan Middle School, as well as Birchwood Elementary School, she said.
The church would like students to be involved in their garden, Alexander said.
Dan Welch of the neighborhood association said the next neighborhood association meeting will focus on the garden projects in the neighborhood.
According to Welch, Birchwood was once known for its gardens, which are accommodated by the particularly large plots of land in the neighborhood.
Battis said the large land plots are unique to Birchwood, and there is concern that this feature will be lost in development.
Welch said the neighborhood wants to show that it can do something productive and sustainable for its residents with the land.