Community Garden
Where we meet and grow together with community
Purpose
The Stony Point Community Garden was established in 2010 by volunteers with donated funds to provide a gathering place for neighborhood residents and First United Methodist Church members to come together and build community. It is a place where participants experience, learn and benefit from growing their own food, develop new friendships and join together to grow produce for donation to less fortunate Santa Rosarians through local foodbanks. Approximately 50% of gardeners are congregation members and 50% are neighborhood families.
History
In 2010 infrastructure plumbing, fencing and 30 family beds were constructed over several weeks, along with eight large 10 x 10 ft beds to be used as Donation Beds and to be used by the Children and Youth programs. Five fruit trees were donated during the first growing season including, as memorials, a Santa Rosa Plum and a Mandarin Orange.
Over the 2010/11 winter Dave Wilson Nursery, a Central Valley commercial grower, donated 19 additional fruit trees including multiple varieties of peach, persimmon, pluot, apple, plum, nectarine, fig and pear. These trees are now four years old and are expected to increasingly produce healthy crops for the foodbank donation program. Also in early 2011, two local landscaping firms, SBI Materials and Grab ‘N Grow, donated 50 yards of topsoil and pathway mulch; garden beds were refilled and the area in between beds was mulched to keep down weeds.
The SCUMY Youth group built a picnic table for the garden in 2011.
In 2012 and 2013, three dozen beautiful climbing roses were donated and planted along the fence lines in honor or in memory of loved ones. These roses have interwoven in the fence and each spring and summer create a wall of color!
In the spring of 2013 PG&E held a Volunteer Day at the garden for their employees and families. 25 workers showed up and in one morning constructed a ninth Donation bed, complete with a trellis on the north end which doubles as a sun shelter for our picnic table.
Donations to FISH
2010 700 lbs
2011 1,400 lbs
2012 2,380 lbs
2013 2,200 lbs
2014 2,433 lbs.
2015 2,300 lbs.
Cumulative 11,413 lbs
2016 and Beyond Plans
Plan for expansion of the garden by 10-15 beds
Explore the addition of additional fruit trees
If You Are Interested:
There are many ways you can be involved in the garden
Sign up for a garden bed, start growing your own healthy food and make new friends.
Volunteer to help out with watering, tending or harvesting on one of the Donation Bed teams that grow and deliver food to local foodbanks
Make a donation to “First United Methodist Church-Community Garden” to assist with our improvement plans
Cost
The cost to garden a bed for one year is either:
$30 plus 8 hours of Volunteer time during the season, or
$50 plus 2 hours of Volunteer time during the season
Contact Us.
To get started, call the Church Office or submit this form and ask to be put in touch with the Garden Manager.
“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.”
— John 15:7