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Published Tuesday, February 07, 2012 in Local

Special

Squash plants flourish last season in one of the beds at Sow Good Garden at Vineyard Community Church near Senoia.

Community Garden: Senoia has had garden for about two years

By Winston Skinner

The Newnan Times-Herald

Brent Anderson is not the first preacher who ever had to cut the church's grass, but his reverie while mowing led to a new area of outreach for Vineyard Community Church.

"I was out her cutting grass and taking care of the 15 acres," Anderson remembered. As he cut the grass, he thought, "There has to be something we can do with this property that would be better than just mowing it."

The was the seed that grew into Sow Good Garden.

Anderson serves on the board of 180 Degree Farm, a non-profit farm in Sharpsburg. That experience exposed him to "what gardening looks like for someone who doesn't have much experience in the garden," he said.

Anderson also checked into resources from the international association of Vineyard churches. He learned a Vineyard congregation in Boise, Idaho has a community garden which generates 30,000 to 35,000 pounds of food on a third of an acre each year. "We kind of learned from both angles," he said.

While organizers in Newnan and Moreland are now putting together plans for a community garden, Senoia has had Sow Good at the church for a couple of years. The garden provides fresh produce for the Sow Good Center, a food pantry in Senoia.

"Everything that we grow as a church will go to that ministry of distributing food to the community," Anderson said.

Sow Good is now working "to get the community involved," the pastor said. Sow Good is now leasing beds to people who "want to get involved with growing their own food."

That aspect of the garden project is a new one. "We're just at the organizing stages," Anderson said.

The church has a raised bed infrastructure with organic compost and automatic well-water irrigation. People can rent two 3- by 12-foot boxes for $85 per year. The church provides the organic compost, watering and organic fertilizer and insecticide.

Community gardeners are expected to cultivate plants in the boxes by around May 1 and keep the beds planted all summer. Anyone interested in gardening at Sow Good should contact Doug Cutright at 330-701-6599 or by email at sow-good@gmx.com.

Vineyard Community Church offers the Sow Good Garden as a ministry with the following goals:

• To bring the knowledge of organic gardening to the community, thereby helping families to grow their own safe and nutritious vegetables.

• To support the sow good center via the produce received from the portion of the garden which is cared for directly by VCC.

• To provide community gardeners with a reliable vehicle for distributing to the poor any food which they desire to donate from their own plots.

Right now, Anderson said, the church is "trying to get the word out" about the project.

Anderson also said he has had several conversations with Tim Coleman who is working with the New Leaf Community Garden in Newnan. There also are plans for discussions that involve volunteers with the projects in Senoia, Newnan and Moreland.

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