Asbury Church Community Garden

“I love the program. It gives us a place to take the harvest we have. Without Plant a Row, I don’t know where we would take 200 pounds of tomatoes or whatever we’ve harvested that day. It’s a great service to the community!” - Brenda, Community Garden Manager

Ten years ago, a group of members of Asbury Church, inspired by the Highland United Methodist community garden, met together with hopes of starting their own community garden. Here, ideas and dreams for their garden began to become a reality. Asbury Church had a softball field that wasn’t being used: wide open with full sun - an ideal location for vegetables! The committee chose to create plots here and lease them by the year to church members so that each person could manage their own plot. Because many members of the church have been Logan’s shoppers for a long time, they knew immediately they would donate some of their harvest to Plant a Row. Brenda, Asbury Church community garden manager recalled: “We’ve been Logan’s shoppers forever, so we knew we were going to use Plant a Row.” 

They started with 6 rows: 37 plots the first year, but because of the high demand for plots, the following year they added another row. The plots are now leased by the year and the gardeners agree to donate at least half of what they grow. 

Before, most of the members of the Asbury community garden were church members, but now about 50% of the gardeners are church members and the other 50% are members of the community. The church also has a preschool so some of the parents of the students have seen the garden and become involved. The neighbors quickly discovered the community garden as well. However, Brenda commented, “A lot [of finding out about the garden] is word of mouth. We have gardeners from miles away who heard about the garden by word of mouth or have a friend who is involved.”