Day 46 - Friday - Round Oak Baptist Church & Downtown Greens

Today, I had a lunch meeting with one of the Associate Pastors, Carson, at Round Oak Baptist Church.  He is in charge of the food ministries that take place at the church.  He oversees the things that are going on, as well as deals with the majority of the mission projects that the congregation undertakes. 

We talked about the program, where it is now, and where we're hoping to see it go in the near future.  He got very excited about the possibility of Round Oak being involved on various different levels.  He described some of the other ways in which the congregation has felt called to help in the community and realized this program was going to fit in very well with what they already had started.  There would only need to be some small changes to the already existing emergency food pantry. 

He expressed his own love for gardening and that he had recently moved to a location that did not provide enough space to garden.  He was excited for the opportunity to possibly garden while at the church, and do some good with it as well.

My second meeting also VERY productive.  The Downtown Greens Community Garden in Fredricksburg is a place with a large amount space that was not being used but is designated for produce. The person I spoke with, Hannah, was very excited about what we're doing and how things are going for us.  She was very enthusiastic about when we might be able to start our projects in the garden space as well as when we might be able to bring in more bodies working the space.

I told her that the soonest I could have people in was the spring, because this is still a very new program, just getting on its feet.  She was very open to that and very receptive. 

We toured the garden.  Checked out all the little things going on and the minor efforts that were made this summer to keep the garden looking nice.  The garden is "open" Thursday from 3pm - 6pm and then Saturday 9am-12noon.  There is an upper and a lower garden.  The upper has traditionally been used for vegetable gardening and the lower for flowering plants and such.

In the upper garden there is a pathway with a pretty walkway trellis, it was one of the few things in the garden taken care of during the summer. The majority of the garden had been allowed to grow grass.  Which made more work for the volunteers as they had to mow it regularly.

She showed me the hay-bail barn that is used to store the tools and said that all the tools in there were available for our use, as well as we could store whatever other tools we needed in there as well. 

The structure itself is a very interesting looking building.  It is framed with wood and the walls are made from hay-bails and plaster. 

The roof is called a 'living' roof.  it has plant life all along the top, and it keeps the building well insulated as well as absorbs the rain that falls.  It was a very neat concept, one I have read about, but not seen in practice. 

The photos are all from the upper garden, since we will be concentrating in this area.

All in all it was a great day and much was accomplished.