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	St. Thomas Episcopal Church Leedsville Road, Amenia Union, NY 12501 845-373 9161
Parish Notices	Reports From The Annual Meeting of the Parish Sunday, January 27, 2008	Community Garden Report 2007 - 2008 Prepared by Alex Hunter The Community Garden, created in the late spring/early summer of 2007 was a great success. Although seeds were planted late, the selection of short season crops allowed us to have a nice harvest, and in so doing provide a good deal of food to OWL's Kitchen. This year (2008) we have the opportunity to plant earlier and so have more choice of the vegetables the garden's raised beds will hold. Last year the garden's beds held bush beans, squash, Swiss chard, lettuce and cherry tomatoes. This year, it is proposed that the beds hold tomatoes, early girls and a frost tolerant variety, yellow squash, carrots, spinach and bush beans. It is also suggested that the beds be rotated. The bush beans in the 2007 growing year yielded on average the most produce of all that was planted. There is however, another benefit to the planting of those beans. Legumes (beans) fix nitrogen in the soil, something that is very difficult for other plants and impossible for humans to do without ingesting plant material. It is therefore important to have one bed always planted with a legume. Bush beans are suggested because they require minimum maintenance but still yield at a maximum output and most people know how to cook green beans. As for the other beds, tomatoes are a good high yield crop with a number of uses. The proposal is for four plants of an early variety such as Early Girl and four plants of a more frost tolerant variety such as Cold Set. For the squash, the proposal is for yellow summer squash. It is assumed that the pantry gets a lot of zucchini and so to fill the gap, it would be good to grow the zucchinis prolific sister vegetable. Last year the Riva's donated their carrot crop to the OWL's kitchen. When it was harvested and brought to the church, I was told by a member of OWL's kitchen that carrots are not donated very often. Carrots are a good source of vitamins that cannot be found in other vegetables and that do not require a great deal of space to grow. It is proposed that we try growing some in the beds this year in two different sowings, spaced about two weeks apart so we have two separate harvests. Least year we grew Swiss chard and lettuce for the kitchen. While these are both great producers, the lettuce does not have a very long shelf life and there are few recipes for Swiss chard. With this in mind, it is proposed that we replace them with spinach. There have been a number of articles recently praising the nutrient value of spinach, as well as new developments in its cancer fighting properties (weight Watchers, Eating Well and others). Spinach also has a longer shelf life due to its thicker, almost waxy leaves. Recipes are also readily available for the cooking of spinach. As of rotation of the beds, this must be done each year. Different plants have different soil nutrient needs. While they may share some needs, if left too long in one spot, they will deplete the soil, reducing their yield in subsequent years. Crop ration is also important in reducing the needs for pesticides. Many pests are specialized and will only eat one type of plant. Therefore, if you change the type of plant in each bed, any larval hatches from the soil will emerge to find their preferred food source missing. This will cause a good percentage of those pests to die naturally. This is always better for the environment.