With two growing seasons under our belt, each season brings more understanding of just what a community garden requires.  Our second growing season, 2018, is still going strong in mid October!  Tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, squash and WATERMELON are still on the vines. 

Our current cold crops include radish, turnip, beets, and three types of lettuce.  We expect to harvest until the first hard frost, or as long as it continues to produce!   

This season we planted strawberries, cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumber, okra, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yellow squash, several varieties of tomato, basil, green beans, lettuce, and rosemary.  Our Summer Youth Program again assisted with the upkeep and harvest of the summer produce.  What a great learning experience for them!

We are excited to have the Berryville Schools EAST Lab and Ag department on board again this fall assisting with cold crop planting and prepping for the winter. 

Recipients of the 2018 harvest have been the Carroll County Senior Center and Loaves and Fishes Food Bank.

We are excited about the 2019 season, as we continue to learn and expand. 

If you are interested in devoting some of your time to our Giving Garden, please contact us at 870.423.3139.  Planting, pruning, weeding, harvesting....we would appreciate the help. 

While the plants were getting their start in the greenhouse, Parks and Rec was busy preparing the garden.  I should probably say “building” the garden, being as we were totally starting from scratch. 
 
The existing grass was removed using a sod cutter and was saved to put in between and around the beds after they were established.  Screen topsoil was brought in by the dump truck full.  Frames were built to hold the soil in semi-raised beds.  More frames were built to hold the topsoil in place until the beds were formed.  Eight 3’x25’ beds were built, grass reestablished, irrigation system installed, 6’ fenced built surrounding the garden plot, soil sent off for testing, plastic placed on the beds to curb weed growth and so much more.  

We have funding, we have land, we have someone with knowledge, let's do this. 

In early 2017, we called a meeting of the minds, reaching out to the entities we felt would show an interest in our project as well.  Representatives of the Berryville School system, 4H, Carroll County Extension Office, Carroll County Master Gardeners, Carroll County Senior Center, Girls Scout Troop #5381, and local food bank Loaves and Fishes were present to listen to our dreams.  We presented our plan and also had David Ray on hand to help answer any technical questions they might have. 

Berryville Schools showed immediate interest and volunteered their Agricultural Department in whatever capacity needed.  Utilizing their greenhouse made all the difference needed to have established plants available to put into the ground as soon as the temperatures allowed.

Mr. Ray's resources provided quality seeds and in March the BHS Ag Dept potted and provided care for them until time to transfer to the ground.

......community garden.  We loved the concept, but what did that really mean?  Do we offer plots for others to raise their garden?  How do you know they will keep it up?  What if they don't?  Do "we" tend a plot as well?  If so, then what?  Keep it, give it away?  Where do we get the funding?  How do we build it?  Where do we build it?  Who can we get to help us?  Will the community support our decision?

Those are just a few of the questions we had when we began.  That was December 2015.

Without answers to 90% of the questions, we applied for a grant.  Or two.  We received a total of 4 grants while we sorted out just what we thought we were doing and how we should do it!

Our most exciting moment was when we partnered with David Ray in the fall of '16.  David had just retired from College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, MO, where he had been the director of all the landscaping and gardening for many, many years.  He had a wealth of knowledge regarding exactly what we had decided we wanted to pursue.  To listen to him quote off the top of his head germination days, growing days, determinant, indeterminant, cold crop, etc sorta had our heads spinning.  Luckily he was able to do the thinking for us.  He had connections for seeds, irrigation, pest control and so much more.  WHEW!