Want to help?

Interested in helping out with Harvesting Hope's container garden project?
Come get your hands dirty!
We're holding a planting day this Saturday and Sunday, May 2- 3, at MK's house in Graylin Woods (4704 Yarrow Court, off Route 5 between Rt. 199 and Ironbound Road). Join us Saturday from 10am to 5pm or Sunday from noon to 5pm. Come when you can, and stay as long as you like. We'll be building the last half of the containers, moistening the soil and planting the remaining plants.

Or donate money toward the effort: as little or as much as you can!
Each garden costs about $8 to create -- $4.80 for the organic topsoil (Countryside Natural Products in Fishersville, VA gave us a great discount) and $3.20 for the tube, funnel, wick and plant support. The plants (and much good advice) came as a gift from Charlie Maloney, a CSA farmer from between West Point and Gloucester who teaches a class in sustainable agriculture at William and Mary. Three of his students took this bucket garden on as their class project and grew the plants in Charlie's greenhouse. The buckets were donated by local restaurants and gathered by a group of volunteers.

Support this effort by underwriting a bucket – or two or three. Make your check out to Harvesting Hope and send it to MK Sizemore, 4704 Yarrow Court, Williamsburg, VA 23188.

We hope to see you this weekend! Click here to continue reading...

Harvesting Hope Container Gardens

Harvesting Hope is creating over 100 container gardens for food-pantry recipients at Grove Christian Outreach Center and in Williamsburg-area subsidized housing communities.

Why Container Gardens?
The design uses one plastic bucket inside another to create a water reservoir at the bottom, which encourages the plants to grow deep roots, cuts down on water requirements as much as 75 percent, and will yield good harvests of veggies on folks' back stoops or back yards with minimal watering and no additional fertilizing. Each garden contains a tomato, eggplant, zucchini or pepper plant. We'll be distributing the gardens in the second week of May.




Our test container garden, a tomato plant started about three weeks ago, is doing great. The roots of the plant grow down into the reservoir, making the plant stronger, better supported, more immune to drought, and better nourished.


Check out more pictures of our process over on our flickr site. Click here to continue reading...