2020 Was a Record Year for Harvest Community Garden!
Harvest Community Garden (HCG) is a nonprofit organization that enables people from the community to come together to grow organic produce and donate half of it to a local food pantry.
The garden is a member of Community Gardens of Carrollton (501c3) and is a partner of the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB).
HCG is located on the south side of Redeemer Covenant Church’s property at 1518 E Frankford Rd, Carrollton, TX.
We now have 24 raised beds (20’ x 4’), and members of the community can adopt a whole or a half plot for a year. The garden also has an asparagus bed, blackberries, and a xeriscape garden which volunteers can help care for.
The Board: The Board is made up of Chairman Stan Basnett, two Redeemer members, three community members, and a member of Board of the Community Gardens of Carrollton. Redeemer’s Missions Chair is also an ex officio board member of the Harvest Garden Board.
Donations to Christian Community Action’s food pantry: We donated a record 2,636 pounds of organically grown tomatoes, peppers, peas,
leafy greens, herbs, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, carrots, potatoes, beans, melons, radishes, celery, and many other things.
Lots of gardeners: A record number of 21 people signed up to tend garden plots in 2020. In spite of the pandemic, we always had a good turn out for Saturday harvests.
Some of our activities & accomplishments in 2020:
January 25 – Board meeting at 8:15 a.m.
January 25 – Gardeners’ meeting at 9:00 a.m.
February 2 – UTD students cleaned up beds and spread mulch in walkways.*
March 4 – Carrollton Citizens Night
March 21 – We began formal harvests (voluntary attendance due to COVID-19, wearing masks and practicing social distancing)**
March – The Eagle Scout projects were put on hold due to COVID-19.
April 6 – 3 yards of compost was delivered.
April 9 – Betty Bell donated seeds to the garden.
April – A bag of Medina organic fertilizer was delivered.
May – We had a lot of problems with birds and rats eating tomatoes.
June – We renewed as a partner garden with NTFB.
July 3 – Luke Bayard worked on his Eagle Scout project: a rabbit fence around Phase 2.*
July 13 – Emily Anderson from NTFB stopped by to visit and bring a sign.
July 22 – Isaiah Booker worked on his Boy Scouts Eagle project: laying flagstones around the shed.*
July – Kim and Julie Lester donated a table and chairs for our patio. Thank you! We enjoyed gathering for coffee and goodies a few times, thanks to Haysam and Blanca!
September 16 – One ton! We reached donation total of 2,020 pounds!
September 28 – We got 3 cubic yards of compost.
October 6 – Stan Basnett put up an owl house and bird bath…We hope we get a nesting pair of owls!
October – Emily Anderson brought us a new NTFB sign.
November 30 – Board meeting
December – We changed harvests to 8:30 a.m. on voluntary basis for the winter.**
*A huge thank you to Kim Lester and Elric Howard for all their work improving and maintaining the garden. They improved walkways, fought weeds, kept the irrigation system working, fixed broken beds, and oversaw volunteers and big projects like leveling the shed, adding a seating area by the shed, and building the rabbit fence.
**Special thanks also to Steven Pliler for organizing the harvest roster all year!
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Contact us at Grow@harvestcommunitygarden.org
