Holy Family Parish Garden

The Holy Family Parish Garden was started as a service learning project by the 2014-2015 5th grade class.  Our goal was to create a pallet style garden, easy to maintain, on an empty Parish lot across from the school, that we could grow good quality, organic vegetables to for the Parish Food Pantry during the summer, and the School during the school year when the garden was viable.  (Winter months are a little tricky in Mid-Michigan for growing much.) We began by studying and learning the basics of plant biology and growth. Then by using class funds generated by Rock Shop, we choose and grew our own organic and heirloom seedlings in the warmth of our classroom.  Come Spring, with some generous donations of pallets and organic soil, from the community and the Parish staff, we created our 1st 10 pallet beds.

The crop from that 1st year was amazing, generating from those little prototype beds 300 lbs of produce, most of which was donated to families in need through our Food Pantry.

Our plan next year is to expand the garden to 5 rows of 6 beds each, include a compost bin and drip irrigation system, and increase our volunteer staff to maintain the garden over the summer months.