The Preparation

May 10, 2008.

With our garden plot staked out, it was time to remove the established sod. Luckily, one of our church members and his son showed up with a power sod cutter and a front-end loader. The garden was laid out over a 40' x 50' (2,000 square foot) area, so we had a lot of sod to remove. Fortunately, with the help of the power equipment, this big job was made significantly easier. After a couple of hours of cutting, rolling, lifting and moving the heavy rolls of sod, the job was done -- the garden plot was cleared! So what did we do with the sod that we removed? Through our community's on-line Freecycle network, we were able to "gift" a good amount of it to someone in our area in need.

God is good - All the time!

The Garden Idea

In the spring of 2008, members of Lord of Life Lutheran Church in Portage, Michigan realized that their church was blessed with a large area of unused land that received abundant sunshine during the summer months. The idea of using a portion of this land to grow produce for the less fortunate in our community was proposed, and it was widely accept by the church's leadership. Planning for the garden began at that time. The location for the garden was the first decision to be made. A couple of sites were proposed, but they were ruled out for a variety of reasons. A final site was chosen based on its proximity to the church as well as a source for water, and also to fit around other possible uses for the land that it would rest upon. The white box in the image to the left shows the garden site that we chose, which is located to the west of the church and receives full sun throughout the day. Concerns were raised about the potential for deer that roam the area of the church to eat the garden down to the ground. As a result, plans were made to enclose the garden with fencing and wire that was 6 foot high, then decorate the fence and wire with colorful ribbons that would blow in the wind to discourage the deer from hurdling the fence line. It was decided that the garden would be grown organically. Therefore, the existing sod on the site would have to be removed by hand rather than chemically removed. Further, soil preparation and the addition of nutrients would require careful selection of products that were organic in nature. The same would hold true for addressing weeds and remedying any pest issues that might arise. Our approaches to each of these areas will be discussed in future posts.