Community Involvement

There has been a lot said in recent years about giving back to the community.  Churches, schools, Girl/Boy Scouts all have individuals who volunteer their time to make their surrounding area a better place to live.  We at the Community Gardens are also helping to contribute to the process of making Granite City a better place to work and live.  Not only are we working against neighborhood blight by turning empty lots into neighborhood gardens but we are also giving produce to the local food pantries.  Two organizations that have benefited from our produce are the Community Care Center and Salvation Army.  Today Jim took a box of cucumbers to the Salvation Army and they were extremely excited to get the food.  When a box of vegetables was taken to the Community Care Center, the people there we so grateful and happy to get fresh food that it was all gone before Jim and Sharon made it to their car.

 By taking our extra produce to these food pantries we are ensuring that food will not be going to waste.  We would rather our produce look like this...

Than this.  Luckily we don't have too many rotten vegetables laying around.  But when they are left on the ground we leave them there to decay and add nutrients to the soil.  We also compost all of the food that has gone bad from being in the sun too long.  We will add this nutrient rich soil at the end of the harvesting season so the soil will be ready next year when are ready to plant again.