Community Garden & Co-Op Food Garden Projects
Our beautiful organic herb and vegetable garden has been through many changes over the past few years.
Unfortunately, since 2020, the supply of herbs and organic foods in our area has been extremely limited and now more than ever people are looking to nature for healing and health. We are eager and ready to offer this to them once again through a community garden & an organic co-op garden. We simply need the funds, resources, and man-power to do so. This financial support would be an answer to so many prayers for a community garden for healing and education for our area.
What We Want to Offer YOU
Receive hands on learning through participating in a variety of growing practices for sustainable gardening & living that you can apply to your own life with your own garden. We want to offer you the opportunity to partner with us in using this community garden space for bringing education and growing local organic food, local organic herbs, and local organic medicinal mushrooms.
It is our vision to start this project here in our community, where nothing like this exists, as an opportunity to bring our community together for the overall wellbeing and betterment of our town!
What We Need
In order to make this project a reality, we would realistically need the following things:
Soil, Organic Seeds, Raised beds (our soil here is rough and polluted so our most successful farmers use raised beds in our area), Tools for gardening and harvesting, Notebooks, printing ink, and other educational materials (tincture bottles, droppers, etc.), Dehydrators for harvesting (because we live in a humid climate this is necessary), a small pay stipend for our educators who will teach. This last item may seem interesting, considering that we are a cooperative. The fact is that there are few herbal educators in our area, so the help we can find is either provided by our coop owner herself (at no charge) or by volunteers. It would be nice to be able to give something back to those putting in so much time and effort for us!
Here is a detailed list of the estimated costs involved in our project:
$2,500 for 15 cubic feet of soil/compost for 16 garden beds & soil delivery
$1,000 raised bed lumber and recycled wood materials
$250 organic seeds & mushroom spores
$1,000 for grow towers & materials/equipment for use
$1,200 3 compost tumblers (fully enclosed)
$300 tools for gardening
$600 drip line hose for watering
$800 dehydrator for large amount of herb dehydration
$500 medicinal class materials & plant stakes for education purposes
$400 paper class education materials (ink for printer, binders, notebooks, markers, etc.)
$300 homemade rain barrel system for watering
We are also asking for help with the funds to help us pay the following open positions for our project. We are a small, family owned, grass roots business that only has so many hands and although our owner's vision is large, she is only one woman and is asking for members of our community to join us in order to accomplish our greater vision.
$300 to pay master gardener & planner (for helping us with the vision at the beginning of our project)
$1,000 to pay class instructor (for about one year)
$3,500 to pay garden coordinator (for about one year)
The Impact
This project originally started as an expansion of our Herb Share Program and quickly turned into a dream that included the sowing seeds, soil education, hands on learning, plant identification, harvesting, composting, and medicinal uses of herbs including but not limited to: tinctures, glycerites, poultices, and teas.
It is our intention to utilize these funds to create 16 large garden beds, 8 here at the co-op and 8 on the Bacliff property. We are in the process of creating educational programs & materials for both children and adults that focus on seed and plant identification, harvesting "how tos", healthy soil education, seasonal produce/crops, rotational planting, best uses of plants medicinally, plant nurturing and propagation for native, medicinal, and plants for food, and composting education.
We have the ability to impact a very large amount of people here in our community due to location and accessibility for the greater Houston area and we are excited to get this project moving forward.
This is just the start of our multi-phase vision of empowering our community with the tools and knowledge to live sustainably at their own homes using what we have been given from nature. We dream of expanding this project to eventually reach local schools with garden projects and education of their own. We will start with the gardens at the co-op, expand to include the gardens in Bacliff for more growing, and eventually create a plan to implement these skills within our local schools.
Risks & Challenges
Other Ways You Can Help
We are founded on the principles of sustainable living, recycling, and community collaboration. We understand that financial donations may not be an option for everyone. So, we are asking that if you can partner with us in any of these other ways, we appreciate that just as much!
Material Donations We Are Asking For:
- Spread the Word! - Let people know what we are doing and that we want them to come be involved!
- Bring groups to volunteer & learn
Progress Update
We have already begun designing the layout of our primary satelite garden - located in Bacliff, TX. It is about a half acre plot of land that will be our main source of organic produce that will be harvested for the co-op. We are currently still waiting for the funds, and many items on our wish list, in order to begin diving into this part of our project. We are very excited for the progress thus far and so grateful for your contributions to our community.
Thank you for the donations we have already received. We look forward to giving many more updates in the very near future. Be sure to keep an eye on our social media pages for updates, garden volunteer days, and more information about the ways we are sprucing up our space.
Unfortunately, since 2020, the supply of herbs and organic foods in our area has been extremely limited and now more than ever people are looking to nature for healing and health. We are eager and ready to offer this to them once again through a community garden & an organic co-op garden. We simply need the funds, resources, and man-power to do so. This financial support would be an answer to so many prayers for a community garden for healing and education for our area.
What We Want to Offer YOU
Receive hands on learning through participating in a variety of growing practices for sustainable gardening & living that you can apply to your own life with your own garden. We want to offer you the opportunity to partner with us in using this community garden space for bringing education and growing local organic food, local organic herbs, and local organic medicinal mushrooms.
It is our vision to start this project here in our community, where nothing like this exists, as an opportunity to bring our community together for the overall wellbeing and betterment of our town!
What We Need
In order to make this project a reality, we would realistically need the following things:
Soil, Organic Seeds, Raised beds (our soil here is rough and polluted so our most successful farmers use raised beds in our area), Tools for gardening and harvesting, Notebooks, printing ink, and other educational materials (tincture bottles, droppers, etc.), Dehydrators for harvesting (because we live in a humid climate this is necessary), a small pay stipend for our educators who will teach. This last item may seem interesting, considering that we are a cooperative. The fact is that there are few herbal educators in our area, so the help we can find is either provided by our coop owner herself (at no charge) or by volunteers. It would be nice to be able to give something back to those putting in so much time and effort for us!
Here is a detailed list of the estimated costs involved in our project:
$2,500 for 15 cubic feet of soil/compost for 16 garden beds & soil delivery
$1,000 raised bed lumber and recycled wood materials
$250 organic seeds & mushroom spores
$1,000 for grow towers & materials/equipment for use
$1,200 3 compost tumblers (fully enclosed)
$300 tools for gardening
$600 drip line hose for watering
$800 dehydrator for large amount of herb dehydration
$500 medicinal class materials & plant stakes for education purposes
$400 paper class education materials (ink for printer, binders, notebooks, markers, etc.)
$300 homemade rain barrel system for watering
We are also asking for help with the funds to help us pay the following open positions for our project. We are a small, family owned, grass roots business that only has so many hands and although our owner's vision is large, she is only one woman and is asking for members of our community to join us in order to accomplish our greater vision.
$300 to pay master gardener & planner (for helping us with the vision at the beginning of our project)
$1,000 to pay class instructor (for about one year)
$3,500 to pay garden coordinator (for about one year)
The Impact
This project originally started as an expansion of our Herb Share Program and quickly turned into a dream that included the sowing seeds, soil education, hands on learning, plant identification, harvesting, composting, and medicinal uses of herbs including but not limited to: tinctures, glycerites, poultices, and teas.
It is our intention to utilize these funds to create 16 large garden beds, 8 here at the co-op and 8 on the Bacliff property. We are in the process of creating educational programs & materials for both children and adults that focus on seed and plant identification, harvesting "how tos", healthy soil education, seasonal produce/crops, rotational planting, best uses of plants medicinally, plant nurturing and propagation for native, medicinal, and plants for food, and composting education.
We have the ability to impact a very large amount of people here in our community due to location and accessibility for the greater Houston area and we are excited to get this project moving forward.
This is just the start of our multi-phase vision of empowering our community with the tools and knowledge to live sustainably at their own homes using what we have been given from nature. We dream of expanding this project to eventually reach local schools with garden projects and education of their own. We will start with the gardens at the co-op, expand to include the gardens in Bacliff for more growing, and eventually create a plan to implement these skills within our local schools.
Risks & Challenges
- Time Availability - we are a small business, run with very few staff and will be relying on the volunteer efforts of those within our small community to help us accomplish this large task
- Weather - humidity, cold snaps, and high heat temperatures in summer
- Pests - Texas is known for bug problems with gardening, especially when that garden is 100% organic! This means we will need to plant companion/sacrificial/pollinator plants to compliment our gardens
- Upkeep & maintenance of gardens
Other Ways You Can Help
We are founded on the principles of sustainable living, recycling, and community collaboration. We understand that financial donations may not be an option for everyone. So, we are asking that if you can partner with us in any of these other ways, we appreciate that just as much!
Material Donations We Are Asking For:
- Gardening tools - gloves, trowels, rakes, watering cans, plant stakes, plant markers
- Recycled wood for garden beds
- Large High Quality Plastic Garbage Can with a Lid & Metal Spicket (please ask us before donating these items, unless you already have a full system to donate because of BPA concerns)
- Trellis materials
- Compost Tumblers
- Shade Cloths
- Watering Line Hose
- Spread the Word! - Let people know what we are doing and that we want them to come be involved!
- Bring groups to volunteer & learn
Progress Update
We have already begun designing the layout of our primary satelite garden - located in Bacliff, TX. It is about a half acre plot of land that will be our main source of organic produce that will be harvested for the co-op. We are currently still waiting for the funds, and many items on our wish list, in order to begin diving into this part of our project. We are very excited for the progress thus far and so grateful for your contributions to our community.
Thank you for the donations we have already received. We look forward to giving many more updates in the very near future. Be sure to keep an eye on our social media pages for updates, garden volunteer days, and more information about the ways we are sprucing up our space.
