Gardening Know How’s School and Community Garden Sponsorships was fortunate enough to help support 10 gardens with a $1,000 each. The gardens selected represent a small portion of the multitude of school and community gardens out there, and we are excited to share each of their stories with you. Once a month we will be highlighting one of our sponsorship recipients so that you, too, can see how wonderful and worthwhile these amazing gardens are. This month we are featuring the Bedford Community Garden.
Located in Bedford, OH, the Bedford Community Garden boasts 42 plots, a small apple orchard and a few raised beds. While they thrive on diversity, catering to various community groups, students from Central Primary School and the UH Bedford Medical Center’s Age Well Be Well Club, it is their hope to provide a more accessible gardening space for handicap and aging gardeners.
With sponsorship funds from Gardening Know How, they plan on erecting three new raised beds, constructed with the aid of their local high school’s “Space Maker” class. These new beds will help remedy current issues with soil, drainage and accessibility. In addition, one of the beds, a vegetable plot, will be used by the UH Bedford Medical Center’s Diabetes Support program as an area in which educational meetings will be conducted.
The easily accessible planting beds are an effort to provide opportunities for successfully growing healthy produce and supplementing food needs while providing enjoyable outdoor activities to gardeners. Excess harvests will be donated to the local food bank as well, providing a healthful food source to those in need. The project also incorporates educational speakers offering instruction on the basics of vegetable gardening, organic gardening, companion planting, seed saving and more…including additional resources provided by gardeningknowhow.com.
The concept of “hands-on” learning by doing doesn’t only apply to young gardeners. Even seasoned gardeners that have been around for some time can learn something new. Gardening has a way of bringing us together – all ages, all regions and all cultures. We are proud to be a part of this.
