On Saturday, April 6, 2019 Midway Park Community Garden more than doubled its growing capacity. Six new garden beds were added that can allow nearby residents their chance to grow in their own plot or the opportunity to garden within a shared space. There is even a children’s garden!
On a drizzly, grey spring day, the sun managed to shine through the clouds just in time for the event. We had a great turnout and six beds were constructed and filled in no time! There was plenty to do for children to plant starts and completely disappear the leftover GroCo™ pile into all of the beds. The kids loved finding worms and shoveling soil into buckets!
Alena is the garden champion who implemented the first ground-breaking event to begin growing food in Midway Park. She took on communication with the city, planned all the necessary logistics, procured funding, and formed long-lasting relationships with community members. All of her continued support this little garden has a huge impact. KCD funded lumber, brought tools and used our big truck to help at the event for the build. It was so much fun to help, even though our support is such a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the sustained effort and passion necessary from a champion like Alena so that Midway Park Community Garden can thrive.
Melissa Tatro, KCD’s previous Community Agriculture Coordinator, even came out on her birthday and brought with her some volunteers. She quickly took charge due to the many gardens built during her time. Even while in a new role outside of KCD she is continuously supporting access to local, fresh food.
KCD often recommends that community gardens start small with some funding from our seed micro-grant in order to demonstrate interest, success, and further outline important needs in order to leverage more dollars. KCD also has a program to supply GroCo™ compost made from Loop® biosolids in up to 10 yards for qualifying community garden projects. If you are interested in the application contact outreachip@kingcd.org.