By Lee Collins
The Cordova Community Garden was full of energy on Friday, Oct. 17 as eager 3rd graders pulled back soil to unearth potatoes grown over the summer. Their excitement came in shouts when a large potato would reveal itself. This event was part of the many efforts happening to get more Cordovans involved with growing plants.
The Cordova Community Garden is located at St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church. It consists of 14 covered raised beds that can be rented for the summer by community members. The garden offers them a chance to get their hands dirty and grow food or other plants for their household. For those who may not have their own garden, using one of these beds is an opportunity to learn and experience the benefits that gardening offers. A garden box gives them a chance to meet more experienced gardeners who rent beds as well.
A variety of food was grown at the garden this summer, including kale, lettuce, tomatoes, beets, carrots, and pumpkins, as well as other varieties of vegetables, flowers and herbs. But the most valuable growth is the growth of knowledge and sharing that occurs. When a seasoned gardener can help out someone new to growing it creates a sense of community and helps us to become more resilient community members. When witnessing the enthusiasm from the 3rd grade class digging potatoes you can’t help but feel joy for those students who will bring that experience home and hopefully encourage their family to start their own garden in the coming seasons. Each student was able to take a few potatoes home so they can feel the satisfaction of eating something that they harvested.
Beyond the growing space at the community garden, there is also a goal to build more healthy soil for all local gardeners. Composting efforts have been successful in creating nutrient rich living soil for the beds at the community garden. And now that same compost is available for purchase. Materials collected for composting are school and hospital kitchen veggie scraps, spent brewery grains, coffee grounds and spoiled grocery store produce. All these materials are mixed with sawdust, shredded cardboard and seaweed and placed into a large steel tumbler where it is regularly rotated for mixing and airflow, creating an ideal oxygen rich environment where materials break down fast with minimal odor in a completely secure container.
Funding for the community garden comes from state and federal sources. A micro-grant for food security through the Alaska DNR funded materials for garden boxes. A USDA grant called a Community Food Assistance Project funds the position of garden manager. This grant is administered through the Rural Alaska Community Action Program (RurAL CAP). The garden manager oversees activities at the garden, helps people prepare and maintain their garden beds, holds seed start workshops, and works to create compost and expand the growing capacity when there is opportunity. Funding from the Prince William Sound Economic Development District and the Cordova Family Resource Center helped to create the garden manager position.
The community garden would not have been possible without the support from St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church Council; their generosity in allowing their space to be used for a garden has been invaluable.
Lee Collins is the Cordova Community Garden manager. To learn more about the Cordova Community Garden, you can contact Lee at [email protected].
